


Family Relations

by Challis2070



Series: In Defense of the Realm [1]
Category: MindCrack RPF
Genre: Gen, Irish Language, Northern Irish Troubles, The Troubles in Northern Ireland
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-15 00:46:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 33
Words: 52,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19284643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Challis2070/pseuds/Challis2070
Summary: An Alternate look on if Millbee and Dinnerbone were Baj's kids, and Pyro was their cousin. (Based on a very old picture of the four of them)





	1. Chapter One

Baj sighed softly. He’d just gotten off the phone with his brother and things weren’t looking good.

Being a single parent was, in his opinion, difficult enough, but now? His sister-in-law was sick, and his brother was…well, personally Baj thought his brother was an idiot who should have never gotten involved with a local when he was still active-duty, but whatever. He couldn’t care for a kid when he was getting reassigned.

And so, his nephew was going to be staying with them for a few months, possibly longer. If his damnable brother could get assigned back to where he was (a horrible place, but it would be where his wife and kid were from, so…Baj would deal with not seeing him) or if his brother could convince his wife to come to England…which was unlikely, given what he knew of her. And the kid. Who was only coming here since he had no-where else to go. Well, that was lovely, wasn’t it? A grumpy teenager who’d love to get back home, and whose mother is ill and whose father has upped and left him. Well, his father hadn’t left him, but that’s how it would seem to the kid, wouldn’t it?

“Maxwell! Nathan! Get in here! We need to talk.”

In the other room, Millbee and Dinnerbone looked at each-other.

“Hey, I didn’t do anything…”

“Sure, neither have I…”

“Hurry up!”

“Coming!”

The two boys bounced into the room and stared at Baj, waiting. He always found that kind of freaky, how they stared, but oh well. He’d tried to tell them that, but they never really seemed to understand why it was so unnerving.

“So. How much do you know about my brother, Tom?

Millbee answered for the two of them, “ The one who lives in Northern Ireland? And has a wife, I think? What about him? Oh. Is he okay?”

“He’s…fine. He’s been reassigned, and his wife is ill.”

Dinnerbone blinked and asked, “Oh, no. That’s no good. What’s going to happen with his wife?”

“Nothing. I mean, she’s staying in a hospital in Belfast. But, um…they have a kid. About your age. And he can’t go with Tom.”

They both blinked.

“Why the hell can’t he?”

Baj sighed, wondering how to explain this.

“Because. It. Erm.”

He sighed and looked up.

“Cause the kid’s mother is an Irish Nationalist. Tom’s already lost most of his clearance for marrying her, but the kid can’t stay on a base. Not just cause of that, but cause the kid wouldn’t really be safe there, sad to say.” Baj sighed, thinking the whole thing stupid.

“Not safe? And…he’d be freaking safer in England Itself?!”, Millbee exclaimed.

“Well…yes, actually. Tom is one person, we’re three…And besides, plenty of people here are from there…okay, so it’s not entirely logical, but I’m the only one who has enough room to take him and who is even remotely willing to do so. So, please.”

Dinnerbone sighed. “So, when’s he arriving, then?”

Millbee interjected, “Wait, why won’t his mother’s side take him in?”

Baj muttered something softly before answering, “Because the ones who would be willing aren’t…okay, so the two we would default to asking have been interned, and their family, while willing, doesn’t have the space for him.”

He blinked and then said, “He’ll be arriving at the airport tomorrow morning, and we will go pick him up. He has an escort, I think, for being underage to fly alone. He’s 14, by the way.”

Millbee and Dinnerbone nodded, slowly.

Millbee was 16 and Dinnerbone had just turned 15 himself.

Millbee, not being known for holding his tongue, then proceeded to ask, “He’s Irish, then? I guess we can’t refer to ourselves as Irish twins anymore…”

Both of them blinked at him. “No, not really a good idea. Also, no, he’s Northern Irish. I think. Ask him.”

“Say, when’s his birthday?”

“What? It’s in three months.”

“Oh good, then he’ll be my age soon.”

With that settled, Baj started pulling the house into some semblance of order, with their help. This was surprisingly effective, what with three people working together.

They slowly all got ready for bed, not being entirely certain what tomorrow would bring.

 

Meanwhile-

“Why, just…why? Why can’t I stay with my aunt and uncles family here?”

“Paul…they don’t have the space for you. Baj does.”

“And Uncle Baj is in England, which is English, and is very far from ma. And I don’t want to be that far from her. Or in England.”

“Paul. I’m from England. You’re half English.”

“No, I’m not. I’m Northern Irish.”

Tom sighed.

“Look, Baj is a good guy, and besides, he’s got two kids your age.”

Pyro blinked at that.

“Really? Do you think they’d actually get along with me?”

“Well, if you don’t bitch how about much you hate England…yes. From what I know, all of your interests are similar, computers, video games, even the genres are similar!”

Pyro sighed for a long moment.

“Fine, but I’m still not freaking happy about this. You fracking better keep me updated on how ma is doing!”

“Language, Paul! And of course I will.”

Pyro sighed, and got his luggage together. He had no idea what to bring, but as much clothing as possible seemed a good idea. Then again, he only had the two cases.

He was very impatient for the time to leave arriving, trying to sleep was quite nerve racking.


	2. Chapter Two

Pyro had never flown before but he already knew he didn’t like it. He was in a small metal tube, way too high in the air, with way too many other people around him. And a freaking escort. What the hell, couldn’t he have gone as an unaccompanied minor? Noooooo, seems not.

“Paul, please stop kicking the seat in front of you,” said the escort calmly.

Paul grumbled, but stopped kicking the seat. He just wanted to land, damn it! He was all cooped up in here, no place to move around, and his stupid escort had trapped him in a window seat.

And the view wasn’t even any good! There were clouds everywhere!

“Attention passengers, we will be landing in Heathrow in 10 minutes, please buckle your seatbelts and put your chairs in the full upright and locked position. Thank you.”  
\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Baj paced the concourse, annoyed. Thanks to certain…troubles…they couldn’t go get Paul at the gate. So now Max and Nathan were sitting at a table with Baj on the other side of security, debating on how to make a sign for Paul to see.

“Paul Connolly. For some reason, that looks silly.”

Baj sighed. There was him with the last name of Smith, a nice plain name, and then there was Max who was Jones. Maxwell had learned there were way too many people with that name when he sat exams, heh. And then Nathan, who was Adams. So, Paul Connolly wasn’t strange, but still. Well. Provided he’d recognize the name. His sister-in-law never took Tom’s last name and had given Paul her own last name. Except now that Baj was thinking about it, hadn’t Tom said that Paul Connolly had been named in Irish? Oh god please let this kid voluntarily speak English. What the hell Tom, I’m going to have some words with you when we next meet.

“Just put Paul on it. He has our pictures, you know. And knows where we are waiting for him.”

“Oh. Okay!” they both exclaimed, starting work on a new sign.

This was just in time, as the plane had just landed not five minutes ago, and Paul…and his escort…should be getting the luggage and heading here soon.  
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Paul sighed and grabbed his luggage. Da had insisted he take the plain ones with the stupid zig-zag design on it. He rolled them out of the way, before stopping to the side. As he did, he pulled out the picture da had given him of Uncle Baj and his cousins. It was about a year old, but he thought he’d be able to recognize them.

“You good?”

He death-glared the escort before answering.

“No! I wanna go home! But I should be able to find them, yes. Maybe they’ll have a sign.”

The man sighed. Escorting underaged, pissed off teenagers wasn’t something he had signed up for.

“Okay, let’s go.”  
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Baj thought he saw Paul walking up with a fairly depressed looking official man. Who was, in fact, wearing a tag saying he was a Ryanair escort. So, yeah, probably the right kid.

They stopped in front of them before the man started to speak.

“Are you…ah…Baj Smith? Related to Tom Smith? And they would be…Maxwell and…Nathan?”

“Yes we are. I, um, hello Paul?”  
\-----------------------------------------------------------------

Paul blinked. His da wasn’t here…and he could…well, it’d be Béarlachas, but that was appropriate, what with being in England.

“Dia duit. Is é mo ainm Pádraig Ó Conghaile. Ba mhaith liom dul abhaile, ach go dtí sin, is féidir leat glaoch orm Pól.” 1“

The older man, Baj…his uncle, stared at him. His cousins stared as well, but that was different. And uncomfortable. He was starting to think that being a jerk was not going to get him the result he wanted.

Baj and the escort sighed at him.

Taking pity on him, Paul finally said, “You can call me Paul.”  
\------------------------------------------------------------------

Millbee and Nathan whispered to each other.

“What do you think he said?”

“I don’t know, maybe his name?”

“Noooooo, of course not. But it was longer than that.”

Baj sighed. This wasn’t going well.

“Okay. Fine. Hello Paul. I’m your uncle Baj. These are Maxwell Jones and Nathan Adams, your cousins. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Ná bréag, nach bhfuil tú ag iarraidh mé anseo. It’s nice to meet you as well.” 2

That…wasn’t what he expected and…was the kid vibrating? Well, so were Max and Nathan…

“Look, let's grab some food and head home and get you set up, okay?”

Paul shrugged, and said, “Sure.”

Well…he was voluntarily speaking some English. That was good, right?  
\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Paul mumbled to himself as they grabbed some hotdogs and fries before piling into a four-door sedan. His luggage had been put in the back after some issues and he was sitting on the driver’s side. And was certainly not sulking. Of course he wasn’t! That was just ridiculous.  
\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Baj looked in the rear view mirror at where Paul was sitting behind him, sulking.

“So. Your room is on the first floor, next to the living room. It’s a guest room. Mine is near the kitchen, on the other side of the house. Nathan and Max are on the second floor.”

Paul blinked at him before nodding slightly.

“Hn. Thank you.”

And he was expecting a longer answer (in English) because…because his brother was an idiot, and now he had this to deal with.

Max took this time to turn to Paul and start asking questions.

“So, what sort of games do you like to play?”

“Um…Minecraft, Pokémon, half-life 2, and call of duty.”

“Oh cool! Minecraft is awesome! I’ve gotta show you some of my builds, okay? Do you have a laptop? Do you have it there? What have you been making? On any servers?...”

“Max! Breathe!”

Paul laughed softly.

“Yah, da gave me a laptop before I left. I’ve got Minecraft on it. Been building…” He paused at that. He’d been building the old GPO building in Dublin. And, as well, Stormont, but that, um…had a bit of TNT built into it. “Stuff. Been building stuff.”  
\--------------------------------------------------------------------

Nathan wondered for a moment why Paul hadn’t said what he was building. He looked over at his dad and noticed Baj had a very kind of pained expression.  
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Stuff? Thought Baj to himself. The FPS’s were…interesting, though he doubted Tom would have been able to get him to stop. Only thing Baj could think of that would make Paul not answer the question was if it was, like….virulently anti-English and that Tom made him agree to play nice. Which was…possible, Baj thought. Not that he had any idea what you could build in Minecraft that would qualify as anti-English. Then again, he mostly stuck to building nice building….oh. That might be it.

“Oh! We’ll be home soon, and then we can get you all squared away, okay?”

Paul blinked at him rapidly, before nodding and saying, “Oh okay. I don’t have much with me…”

“That’s…fine. We can make a list of stuff you’re missing and get it tomorrow, that’s Saturday, after all.”  
\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Paul looked out the window eagerly as they approached the house. It was a nice two-story house, with a fence and lots of flowers. And, for some undefinable reason, a large rainbow sheep in the window next to the front door.

“Sheep?”

Maxwell laughed.

“It was from my mam. It’s now our mascot.”

“Your mascot, Max!”

“Aw, fine, Nathan’s right, it’s my mascot.”

He thought the house looked nice enough. At least it would be a nice place to stay till his ma got better.

He sighed softly before whispering to himself,”Ba mhaith liom dul abhaile go dtí mháthair. Níor chóir Athair sheoladh chugam ar shiúl. Dúr bastaird Béarla.”3

Paul shook himself and then said, “Okay, I really want to get out of this car now. I’ve been cooped up for far too long!”  
\--------------------------------------------------------------  
With that, everyone readily agreed with him and came tumbling out of the car, before dusting themselves off and grabbing the luggage.

Baj smiled, it was good to be home.

He just hoped it would continue to go well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now for translations!
> 
> Béarlachas just means Englishness. It’s using Irish words with English grammar. It’s not pure Irish.
> 
> 1 “Hello. My name is Paul Connolly. I want to go home, but until then, you can call me Paul.” He’s actually calling himself Patrick, but his English name is Paul.
> 
> 2 “Don’t lie, you don’t want me here.” As far as he knows, this is true.
> 
> 3 “I want to go home to ma. Father shouldn’t have sent me away. Stupid English bastard.” He’s annoyed at being sent here away from his mother, and lashing out at his father. He doesn’t actually hate him. Or Baj, for that matter.


	3. Interlude

Baj looked out the back windows as the three boys were running around. He had told them to blow off steam and that he’d call them back in for dinner. This should buy him plenty of time for what he needed to do.

\------  
Ring. Ring. Ring.

Tom stared at the phone with some trepidation.

Oh god, what had Paul done that was making Baj call him the very first day??

Rinnnnnnnn

Tom grabbed the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hi Tom. Do you have some…time? It’s Baj…”

“What did he do?”

“Well.”

“Yes, I have time. What.did.he.do?”

“Not much. Or rather…how often does he speak English, Tom?”

Tom blinked and swore to himself. Lasairfhíona had taught him Irish Gaelic, but the boy spoke English just fine.

“He’s fluent in English. Has he refused to speak?”

“Oh, no, he’ll respond in English. It’s just…much shorter than the Irish. And for some reason, I don’t think he’s translating all of it.”

Tom relaxed at that.

“Oh, yeah. That’s normal.”

Baj stared at his phone. Normal?

“He defaults to Irish when he is upset or annoyed, but if you continue to demand an answer, he’ll give you the answer in English. And…yeah. Lasairfhíona has mentioned that he only translates part of what he says. She finds it funny, though…”

Baj blinked. Oh, that’s just…great. Well. Actually. It’d give him a way to gauge how pissed off Paul actually was.

“By the way, how is Las…Las…Lassarina doing?”

Tom chuckled softly. It had taken him the better part of two months to say her name correctly.

“She’s comfortable. The doctors say she should recover, but it’s going to take a while. I’ve been fighting with command to reassign me to the province.”

Tom murmured to himself. Command had said they’d work on it, but that meant at least two weeks, probably three before they even came back with a yes or no. And then if it was a yes, another month before he’d actually be sent back!

Baj sighed. So, at least a month and a half before they’d know, if he had to go through Command.

“Well, other than that, they seem to be getting along. Max was talking about Minecraft, which Paul seems to like, so that’s good.”

Tom nodded to himself. Yeah, Paul did like Minecraft. He wasn’t sure Baj would like what Paul tended to build…

“Yeah, he really does. If he gets less grumpy, he’d probably build something to show you.”

“Yeaaaaaah, he mentioned he built…’stuff’. And didn’t elaborate.”

“He uses it to blow off steam. There’s been a curfew here for a while, and he’s…high energy.”

Baj snorted, he could tell. They’d been running around for two hours now, with no sign of slowing down.

“Right then. Thanks for the information. I’ll talk to you later; I hope Lassarina gets better quickly.”

“Want to be rid of your nephew that fast, hm? But yeah, I’ll keep you and Paul updated. Later!”

Baj sighed as he hung up the phone.

Well, okay, then.  
\-----------

 

“Paul, come here a moment, please?”

Paul blinked and ran over. Why…was ma okay?

“What?” he said, shuffling his feet uneasily.

“Wanted to let you know, your dad says that your mother, um… Lassarina, I mean, she’s doing okay and the doctors expect her to recover in average time.”

Paul blinked. Lassarina? That…well, that wasn’t a mangling he’d heard before.

“Ah, ma is doing well? Lasairfhíona I mean, yeah? That’s great! Thanks!”

With that, Paul ran back off to where Max and Nathan were, presumably to tell them this.

Baj watched him run off. Las…Lasairfina? He thought that was closer, but he wasn’t sure.

He went back inside and stared at the cupboards. He needed to think about dinner. Or not. He had salad like stuff in the fridge…which shouldn’t be alive yet. And there was frozen pizza and French fries. And he had a deep-fat fryer. Well, a small one, but it worked.  
\-----------

With that, Baj turned back to the table and his now cold tea, and mulled on what he was going to do about Paul. And Gaelic. And his idiot brother Tom.


	4. Interlude, Two

Pyro wasn’t too terribly surprised when they had gotten shooed outside as soon as he had finished putting his clothes in the drawers and the luggage put away. He was very antsy, and he suspected that Nathan and Max were as well. Well, they’d been staring at B…Uncle Baj in the same way as they’d stared at him before, and that’s when he’d shooed all three of them outside, anyways.

He wasn’t really certain what to even say to them. He didn’t really want them to stare at him again, it was creepy, to be honest.

“So. Um. I’m Nathan, and this is Max. People usually call me Dinnerbone, though.”

“Yup! I get called Millbee. The sheep in the windows name is also Millbee.”

Pyro blinked at them and nodded.

“I’m Pádraig1. I mean Paul. Um. My friends call me Pyro.”

He shook his head rapidly back and forth before continuing.

“I mean, not cause of fire or anything. Cause of dragons, actually.”

They both blinked at him and kind of shrugged.

“Nice to meet you Pyro. I’m going to play with the jungle gym.”

“I think I’m going to go draw some things out in the sandbox. Didn’t manage to grab any of the sketchbooks.”

Pyro nodded at them before wandering off to where they seem to have put up some swings. What had his father said? He was high energy? He bet this two were almost as much as him, given they had what seemed like a small playground here. Or was that normal in England, to have a backyard and stuff? He wasn’t certain.

He sat down on one of the swings and started to drift away, thinking about home. He was faintly aware that he had started to swing back and forth, and that Nathan and Max were still off doing their own thing, but he was too busy in his own mind to notice much of them.

He lived with his mother in Belfast up on the Falls road. Well, more toward what he called the more neutral area of it, really. With da living with them, it would have to be. Da worked most of the time though. He was military, and his schedule was strange. Military. English military, and that was…he still didn’t get why his ma had married him. Lasairfhíona was…ma is…he knew that his aunts and uncles were nationalists and so was ma. But da wasn’t, or at least, that made no sense. And he was English! He found the whole thing very confusing. Normally when he got confused, he’d get out that old song and play it. It was called The Orange and the Green2. It described him fairly well. He didn’t have his mp3 player with him, though.

He sighed softly as he continued to swing. It was comforting; it was like being at the park at home, when it was open. He thought that maybe he might possibly convince Uncle Baj to let him outside after curfew, but he doubted it. If he could, though…then he could swing and look at the stars, like ma had talked about when she was a kid.

He blinked and swore to himself. He had just realized he didn’t know when curfew was here. He hoped that Uncle would tell him at dinner. If not, he was just gonna have to ask him. And ask what papers he would need to be able to be going out tomorrow. He wasn’t sure if he’d need his school papers or also travel papers or anything. He had brought every piece of paper he could find, just so he wouldn’t get stopped, he was worried it would upset his uncle if he had to deal with someone who couldn’t even remember their own travel papers! And he didn’t want that, not at all.

There was also that problem of going out tomorrow for clothes and, what did he know, bed sheets and stuff. And school supplies, yeah! They’d said something about him being at the same school as his cousins while he was here. They’d have to get him one of the uniforms, or maybe Millbee or Dinnerbone still had one of the old ones. And school supplies and stuff. And school was scary, honestly. And…was it a Catholic school or a Protestant school. Had to be the second, didn’t it? Uncle Baj grew up with da, and da was a proddy. Breathe, breathe. You’ll be fine, maybe Millbee and Dinnerbone will protect you or something.

Uncle Baj seemed nice enough, and even ma said he was a good guy. He must have made sure to figure this stuff out. He knew they’d been talking since ma first went into the hospital; it was just that things had gotten so sped up when da had been suddenly reassigned.

He sighed softly before jerking upright suddenly. Millbee and Dinnerbone were standing about two feet away from him, staring. What the hell were they, the Child of the Corn?

“Dé diabhal é, cad é an ifreann atá tú á di? Maidir thug dom taom croí, tú rabadh!” 3

They both blinked rapidly at him before speaking.

“We didn’t mean to startle you! We just wanted to talk to you some more!”

“Yeah. Um….what did you say?”

Pyro turned bright red and shook his head. Da would be real ticked off he had heard him say that.

“It…I was surprised. Sorry. What did you want to say?”

“Um well, we were wondering what you were…saying before. In Irish, I think?”

“Yeah. Irish Gaelic. Ummmm.”

He swung back and forth nervously.

“I wasn’t really being polite, though.”

“Well, it was too long for that!” Millbee laughed, chuckling slightly.

“I was just saying my name and that I wanted to go home, but you could call me Paul. And that B…Uncle Baj was lying about it being nice that I was here. But that’s true, you don’t want me here!”

Dinnerbone shook his head at Pyro.

“It’s…surprising, but man, you gotta stay somewhere after all!

“I…guess. I wanted to stay with my aunt and uncle in Armagh, though.”

“I thought they didn’t have the room.”

“They don’t! But I still…I’d have…”

“Oh. Well, I’m sure your mam will get better soon, and then you could go back home.”

Pyro started to say something, when they heard Baj calling him over.

He jumped up and ran over, worried. Was his ma okay? Had something happened? What about da?  
“What?” he asked, shuffling his feet uneasily.

“Wanted to let you know, your dad says that your mother, um… Lassarina, I mean, she’s doing okay and the doctors expect her to recover in average time.”

Paul blinked. Lassarina? That…well, that wasn’t a mangling he’d heard before.

“Ah, ma is doing well? Lasairfhíona I mean, yeah? That’s great! Thanks!”

With that, Paul ran back off to where Max and Nathan were, to go tell them this.

“Da says that ma is doing well, that’s great.”

“Hey, good! I’d bet she’ll be fine in a few weeks, you know!”

\------

They decided to build some sandcastles and passed the time that way until Baj had called them all inside for dinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations!  
> 1 Patrick. His name in Irish. He’s called Paul in English, and he knows this.
> 
> 2 The Orange and the Green. A song. See here- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTouKoOV80g. It’s about a kid was born from a ‘mixed’ marriage of Catholic and Protestant.
> 
> 3 “God damn it, what the hell are you doing? About gave me a heart attack, you jerks!” He was startled by them, and tends to curse more when he gets surprised.


	5. Chapter Three

Pyro looked around the table as Baj finished putting the food down. They had a few pizzas, something that may or may not have been green once, and French fries. Baj was sitting at one end, Nathan and Max were sitting on opposite sides from each other and Paul was sitting across from Baj.

Which he figured was good, that way he could see how he reacted to questions easier. He figured Uncle Baj would be fine with the questions (at least as long as he stuck to English) but he wasn’t sure. Dinnerbone and Millbee had both said that Baj didn’t mind questions as long as you accepted the answers.  
\-----

Baj looked around at the boys as he finished setting the table. Max and Nathan seemed happy enough, and he thought he saw them talking to Paul earlier.

He was almost entirely certain that Paul had questions, just from how he was acting. He seemed kind of nervous, though. Probably wanted to know how tomorrow was going to go and all.

He shrugged slightly and dug into the food. It had been a long day. Nathan and Max quickly joined him, though Paul did not.  
\-----

Pyro looked around for a moment before realizing that if he was going to pray, he better start. He had bowed his head before the other three had grabbed their food, resulting in him not seeing them staring at him again.

“Ár nAthair atá ar neamh, naofar thy ainm. Dtaga do ríocht. Beidh Thy a dhéanamh ar an talamh mar a dhéantar ar neamh. Tabhair dúinn inniu ár n-arán laethúil, agus maith dúinn ár bhfiacha, mar a mhaithimidne siúd a foghail in aghaidh linn, agus ná lig sinn i gcathú, ach saor sinn ó olc.”1

As soon as he finished he looked up to see them watching him.

“Eh? It’s the Lord’s Prayer…”

“Oh! Um. Right. Enjoy dinner then.”

Pyro blinked at them slowly before grabbing some of the pizza and fries.

He was slightly confused by them. They’d never have heard it in Irish before, but didn’t everyone pray before eating? Why hadn’t they, then?

As soon as Pyro got enough food down to start feeling better he looked back up at Baj.

“Aaaah, may I talk?”

Baj blinked at him.

“Yes, of course. What is it?”

“Um…”

Pyro wasn’t sure how to word his questions so he went with the best manner he knew, ask everything all at once.

“When is curfew? What papers do I need to travel tomorrow? What school am I going to? Is it Catholic or not? Am I allowed to speak Irish, here or outside or either? What happens if I do something wrong? Do I have to walk to school? What papers do I need to go to school? Will the army check my papers? Where do we go to get the papers…?”

“Ah, take a breath and slow down please, Pyro.”  
\-----

Baj wasn’t entirely certain of half of what Pyro was even asking about. He and Tom talked a bit about how things worked where he lived, but not much.

“Um…Everyone has to be in bed by ten, if that’s what you mean.”

Pyro blinked at him again, appearing mildly vexed.

“No, that I figured, I mean, curfew. You know. When you gotta be back inside by.”

This succeeded in confusing Baj farther.

“You…mean like…for the city or something? There isn’t one here. Just the house curfew.”

Millbee and Dinnerbone looked at each other for a moment.

Millbee took the opportunity to then ask, “Why? What was curfew at home for you?”

“You have to be inside by six pm normally. Night workers have papers to show to go to and from work. Can’t leave the house until six am. It changes depending on the time of year. It’s always before sunset.”

Baj looked at Pyro slowly.

“And what happens if you aren’t back inside before then?” Baj asked, mildly concerned.

“Well, you know.”

“…no, we don’t Paul.”

“No? You get stopped by the military, and they search you. Check your papers. If you don’t have them for being out at night, you get taken to the station, sometimes they intern you instead. You…don’t want that, it interrupts everything!” Paul shrugged, as though this was the most normal thing ever, anywhere.

That wasn’t the answer Baj was expecting at all. He didn’t know what he was expecting, but that wasn’t it.

“That…doesn’t happen here. Um…the paperwork to transfer you temporarily has been sent to the school already, you’ll start the Monday after next, so you can get settled. Um, you don’t need to show papers to people to go somewhere.”

Baj took a moment trying to remember what he was asked.

“Um, same school as Max and Nathan. It’s…it’s a state school…”

“Oh. That’s good.”

Was it? Baj wasn’t certain any longer what would or wouldn’t be good.

“You can speak Irish if you want, but most people won’t understand you. English only in school, however.  
\-----

Pyro pondered this for a moment before realizing that given how fast he spoke; Uncle Baj had probably forgotten most of the questions.

“Um…What…what happens if I forget that and speak Irish at school?” He said, slightly worried. He’d heard rumors…which he was certain were just that, rumors, but this wasn’t home…

Baj stared at him for a long moment, succeeding in making him more worried than he was before.

“You’ll have to answer in English. You only speak English at school, you understand?”

He understood well enough, that whatever it was that would happen to him, neither he nor Baj would want to deal with.

“Yes sir. I understand. I’m sorry.”  
\-----

Baj wasn’t entirely certain what he was sorry for, it was just a question.

“Oh, um something about…walking to school? Yeah, Max and Nathan will show you how to get there; it’s about two blocks away. We will go sometime next week and get your i.d. card, that’s what you use to get in the school.”

“Oh, so the card is like a paper, then?”

What?

“Sure, I guess. You only need it to get into the school, though.”

Pyro nodded to Baj before blinking at his food. He quickly wolfed the rest of it down.

“Um, um…where are we going for school stuff tomorrow?”

“Asda, why?”

“Oooo, I still have an Asda card from my aunt, that’s good!”

“Okay. You three clean up in here, I’m going to go turn on the T.V.”  
\-----

The three of them quickly cleaned up the kitchen, helping show Pyro where the things went.

“Um. Pyro. No-one’s going to get upset if you speak Irish, they just won’t take it as an answer.”

“Yeah man.”

“I…I’ll be careful, don’t worry.”

Millbee and Dinnerbone looked at each other for a moment. Just what would happen to Pyro at home if he spoke Irish to the wrong people, then? Maybe they could get ahold of Uncle Tom and ask him what that was all about.

“Oh…okay.”

“Oh! Be sure to get some new sneakers, the gym track is pretty large, and they love having us run it constantly! We go through shoes like…every few months.”

Millbee quickly realized that Dinnerbone was changing the subject and fast.

“Yeah! I think you’ll like science, we get to go outside for the experiments quite often. Be careful with English, though, all of those teachers are constantly going on about diagraming sentences and stuff. So annoying, but if you do it wrong man, well.”

They both nodded in agreement, before shuddering slightly.

“Oh, looks clean in here now, let’s go watch T.V.!”

And at that, they both bounded off for the living room.  
\-----

Pyro looked around for a moment.

It…didn’t look so clean to him, the counters were horrible.

He sighed, and grabbed the cleaning supplies he had seen, before starting in on cleaning everything he could reach. Once he was done, he put everything back where it went. He had no idea where they’d hidden the broom, but oh well.

With that, he headed off to find this living room. He figured where it should be, since he saw part of it as they went to the guest room, in any case.  
\-----

“Uh, so, um, what are you watching?”

“Just some of the news, I think they’re playing on their laptops, though.”

Sure enough they were.

Pyro went into the room and sat down on the last available chair, which was, conveniently, facing the television.  
\-----

Baj sighed as he got ready to go to sleep.

Pyro had been far too intense with watching the news, which a kid his age shouldn’t be. If Baj was right, it was probably from listening to news reports from the province far too often.

Well, he’d told them to be awake at eight a.m. tomorrow so they could grab some breakfast before heading out. He rather hoped all three of them would actually be able to manage that. Millbee was always the last to wake up, but he had a new alarm clock, that might work. Maybe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations!  
> 1 The Lord’s Prayer, badly managed by google translate, I’m sure.


	6. Informational

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is just backstory on what has changed in their world as compared to our own. It's not integral to the story.

I’ve realized that most people probably don’t have quite the…obsession that I have with Northern Ireland. Also, should explain some other things with where people are from and such.

This is technically set during the Northern Ireland 'troubles', however it is otherwise modern day. Or to think of it otherwise, the troubles have continued rather than having the current peace treaty.

Baj (and by extension, Tom) were born and raised in Manchester. They don’t live there, mind, they live…somewhere I haven’t decided yet, but it’s closer to London than that.

Baj being from Manchester is…useful, in this regards, since Manchester saw some of the same problems that Northern Ireland has, but from the other side, effectively.

Dinnerbone was born in London. He was raised wherever they are all living now. His mother is still around, but Baj has full custody of Dinnerbone.

Millbee was born in Cardiff and raised there until he was eight. His mother passed away then (when he was eight) in an accident. At that point, he came to live with Baj and Dinnerbone.

Pyro was born in, well. Derry/Londonderry, though if you ask him, it’s Derry. He was mostly raised in Belfast, however. When he is talking about living on one end of the Falls Road, well, the Falls Road is known for being a nationalist area. That’s why he says they live towards the neutral parts of it, since Tom couldn’t very well live with them at the top of it, basically.  
This is where it becomes important to know how Pyro was raised.

He was raised almost exclusively by his mother and her side of the family. Tom was…there, and lived with them, etc., but he allowed his mother to do basically the entire raising. This is probably mostly since he was working most of the time, but also since he wasn’t really expecting to have a kid and get married. Since Lasairfhíona seemed more prepared to deal with a kid, Tom let her deal with it, she wasn’t, but things happen.

Also. Lasairfhíona and her family are Irish Nationalists. This means they support the cause of Northern Ireland joining with the Republic of Ireland. Northern Ireland is under the…control/government of the United Kingdom, currently (both in real life and in the story).

Thanks to this, Pyro has been effectively raised as an Irish Nationalist as well. He doesn’t think about it much, but it informs what he knows and, as well, thinks about England.

In this case, his family has pretty much convinced him that England itself is…worse than Northern Ireland is. He is under the impression that he can be arrested/interned (interned being held in prison without trial) for, basically, being Irish in the wrong places. And in this case, the wrong place includes all of England. This is why he’s so concerned about speaking Irish. It’s the easiest way to tell if some is Irish, after all. He also is unaware that Northern Ireland is under martial law. He thinks that the military presence is both normal and common. He’s vaguely aware that the military hasn’t always been there, and that his mother’s family is fighting to get them removed from the province, but he hasn’t really analyzed it all that much.

This is problematic for him, since he’s normally a very chipper and outgoing sort of person. Once he starts to realize that he’s not going to be arrested or anything, he will get more outgoing again, but he’ll always have the inner dialogue going, basically “I want to go home. They are trying to trick you and keep you from wanting to go home. You need to go home. They might be nice people, but this isn’t home.” And so on. Whether or not any of the others realize what he’s doing is…debatable. Baj might, once he starts contemplating various things, and he of course, can call Tom and ask him. Tom is the sort of person to be able to feel at home anywhere, but the expense of that is that he never really considers anything about where he’s living to be unusual or strange. So, he’s not really aware of how messed up things are. Sure, he knows that the province is under martial law, but, well, Northern Ireland has always had its problems, right? No Tom, not at all.

If you have any more specific questions that I am forgetting or just not realizing, please ask me!


	7. Chapter Four

Nathan and Max sat on Max’s bed upstairs, discussing what had happened that day.

“He’s kinda odd, you know.”

“Well, yeah, but he’s from Northern Ireland. I think that’s bound to make anyone odd.”

“Yeah. Hey, you still have your laptop with you, right Max?”

“Yup, why? We gotta get up early, you know.”

“Yeah, yeah, but I want to look up what dad was talking about last night with Irish nationalism and stuff. Maybe that way we can learn more about Paul, you know? Since I was thinking, it’s odd, but normal to him, right? So how would he know what we want to know?”

Max blinked a few times before nodding. Made sense to him. He went and grabbed his laptop, going to Google.

“So, um, like what? I think there was Irish nationalism before now, since there’s the republic. Maybe we look up modern Irish nationalism? Or like, Northern Irish nationalism?”

“The second, I think, since he’s from Belfast, right?”

They looked with interest as the results came in. And then started to get concerned as they read the links. They appeared to be from both sides, and very biased, but still, very concerning.

“Did you know any of this? I mean, I’d heard about the bombings and shootings and stuff, but nothing about internment.”

“Nope. That suddenly makes some things make sense, though. Like how Uncle Tom could have been expecting to send Paul to his aunt and uncle there, but they got interned. That doesn’t look like something people can always expect. Like, some people might know it is gonna happen, but it doesn’t seem to be the whole case.”

“Oooh!”

“What?”

“Maybe that’s why Paul seems to think you can get arrested for speaking Irish! If Irish is mostly spoken in these nationalist areas, and most of the people interned are from the nationalist areas, then most people interned would know some Irish, right?”

Dinnerbone didn’t think that logic quite worked that way, but it sounded right. And huh, wouldn’t a fourteen year old think that way, as well?

“Huh, maybe. Or at least, maybe that’s what Paul thinks?”

“Yeah. All this stuff, damn. I’m surprised he’s willing to be in England, it’s made to look, like, evil! Or Empirical. Or something.”

Dinnerbone considered this for a moment, contemplating.

“Perhaps he thinks he’s got no choice? He’d have to have been told why he can’t stay with family there, and he obviously can’t live by himself. So, he’d know he has to come here.”

It was apparently Millbee’s turn for contemplation as that caused him to start chewing on his lips thoughtfully.

“Hn. So, you mean. Do you think he’s gonna act out like I did after mam died?”

“Hn. Maybe? But I was like…seven when you came here, I don’t remember much of how you acted.”

“Mae'n ymddangos i siarad Gwyddeleg pan cynhyrfu. Ond os yw'n credu y anghyfreithlon.1 ...or to say, He seems to speak Irish when upset. But if he thinks that's illegal...”

“I...that...okay then. But well, maybe he just would stop talking, instead. I kinda remember you just refusing to talk to anyone for a long while...”

“True. At least he’s been talking, we just gotta make sure he doesn’t freak out so badly that he stops talking, right?”

“Right! Um, damn. It’s getting late. Gonna go get some sleep now, lets hope tomorrow goes well.”

“Ahah, yeah. Tomorrow. Fun. Yup.”

\-----

Pyro stared at the door of his bedroom.

It was now seven a.m.

He’d gotten up at 6:45, but he was starting to think he’d misunderstood Uncle Baj. He’d thought that he wanted to be out by eight a.m. but he didn’t hear anyone else awake.

“Well. I’m pretty sure I saw eggs and bacon. So I could probably make at least part of an Ulster Fry2. Yup. Think I’ll do that.”

Pyro laughed to himself softly, before heading to the kitchen.

\-----

Baj woke up at 7:15 a.m. to mild confusion.

“Why do I smell bacon? They’re never up early, and hardly ever sit still long enough to eat breakfast.”

He shrugged slightly before getting dressed and making his way quietly towards the kitchen. If one of them was making breakfast, he didn’t want to go scaring them off, ha!

As he approached the door he heard soft singing coming from inside. He recognized it had to be Paul, so he stopped in the doorway listening, waiting for him to notice he was there.

“Keep on the fight, you volunteers, For God is on your side. That jail won't break their spirits down; They'd just as soon have died. For England knows and England fears, Our fearless Northern Gaels, And that's another reason why, They keep our lads in Crumlin Jail! For England knows and….3 Ohhh! Ní raibh a fhios agam go raibh tú ann, tá mé mar sin leithscéal!4 I, I….breakfast! Have breakfast!”

Baj jerked back, startled at Paul’s reaction to his appearance.

“I…..what did you make?”

“It, um…it’s an Ulster Fry5! I thought you wanted to have breakfast before we left! So, um, I made breakfast. I didn’t hear anyone else, so, ummmm.”

“Oh. I was expecting you to wake up at eight. Um, it smells nice, thank you.”

He wasn’t certain what to do, other than accept the food and try to pretend Paul hadn’t been singing.

\-----

Pyro was praying that Uncle Baj would pretend he had never heard him singing. He really hoped so.

“So, um Asda. More clothes. And like, school stuff. And ummmm. Bathroom stuff…”

“Yeah. You can keep your stuff in the bathroom near your bedroom; I’ve got my own master bath.”

\-----

Nathan and Max, somewhat surprisingly, woke up at 7:45 and made their way downstairs. Or not so surprisingly, if you followed your nose.

“Oooooo, breakfast!”

“Yes. Paul made it, which was nice of him, hm?”

“Oh, thanks Paul!”

“You’re welcome.”

They both dove in, ignoring the fact that both Paul and Baj were acting extremely awkward.

\-----

“Thanks for breakfast, Paul!”

“Yah, that was nice.”

“Ha, you two normally never sit still for breakfast!”

“Aww, we do, if it involved bacon and eggs and stuff. Not oatmeal…”

\-----

They all arraigned themselves in the car, in the same way they had yesterday, with Pyro behind Baj, Dinnerbone in the passenger seat, and Millbee behind Dinnerbone.

Pyro looked out the window, watching the scenery go past.

He was contemplating what had happened when he made breakfast. He had no idea how much of the song Uncle Baj had heard. He did know he’d heard him freaking out in Irish, though. Hadn’t he said he could speak that there, though? Just not outside? Maybe that’s why he hadn’t done anything about it.  
\-----

“Okay, we’re here! We met back up at the main entrance if we get separated, Paul, let’s head over to the clothing first. Grab a shopping trolley6, please.”

With that, they all headed into the store, Paul stopping to grab a shopping trolley before heading back over to Baj.

Today looked like it was going to be an interesting day for everyone, thought Baj.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations and Notes!
> 
> 1 What he says in English after this is what he was saying in Welsh.
> 
> 2 Ulster Fry- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_breakfast#Ulster . A type of breakfast.
> 
> 3 A song. Called Crumlin Road, commonly. Found here- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpN7KPE1sEE
> 
> 4 “I didn't know you were there, I'm so sorry!”
> 
> 5 As per note 2.
> 
> 6 Shopping cart. One of the big ones with four wheels on it.


	8. Chapter Five

Baj walked towards the store, deep in thought.

He was uncertain what Paul’s singing meant. He sounded happy when he was singing, so maybe he just sang when he was glad? And the contents of the song he just kind of…chose at random? He really hoped that Paul had just chosen a song he’d heard or sung a lot, rather than specifically picking that one to sing because he was upset or unhappy.

“Okay! We met back here, on the other side of the registers, in two hours, or when you finish shopping, whichever comes first!”

Both Dinnerbone and Millbee answered, “Okay! See you later!” before running off, but Pyro stayed with the trolley with Baj.

“Ah, Paul, I’ll help you find your stuff, okay?”

“Okay, Uncle Baj.”

\-----

Pyro looked around the aisle they were currently in. It was full of notebooks and binders and all sorts of paper products for school. He figured backpacks and stuff would be the next aisle, as well.

He sighed softly, before grabbing some of the plain white folders. He added them to the trolley which had some black binders in it.

 

“Are you sure you don’t want any of these ones?” Baj asked, pointing toward the section full of heavily designed folders.

Pyro contemplated the designed folders. There were certainly some nice ones there; at least two of them looked like the landscapes at home, and one with a bunch of dragons on it. Though that one seemed to be of St. George and the Dragon, actually.

“No, I think the plain ones are better, really.”

Definitely better, less likely to draw attention to himself. Even if he really did want one of those landscape ones.

“Are you sure? There are some really nice landscape ones here, they look like the pictures Tom’s sent me, actually.”

Pyro blinked softly. Yes. He knew that. That’s why…

“I know. That’s why that’s a bad idea, yeah? I mean, plain ones are better, less attention, less…Irish”, he said, whispering the last word quietly to Baj.

\-----

Wait. What? Why…

“Wait. Why not have things from where you are? It’s part of who you are!”

Paul blinked at him, appearing confused at the question.

“Be…because that would draw attention to me. And, and, that’s not good. I don’t want attention on me; I want to…want to be as normal as I can be for here, until I can go home. If there is less attention on me, there is less likely to be tr…issues, yeah, you know?”

No, Baj didn’t really understand this.

“What. No, why? It’s not like anyone’s going to care what you have with you. Well, girls might giggle if you had, like, the sparkly ones, but that’s about it."

Paul looked at him with the same sort of vexed look on his face he had last night, when he was talking about curfews. Baj wondered what it was that he had misunderstood this time.

“It. I. I don’t know how things work here, but I do know how things work at home. And just…drawing attention to myself while in…England just. Not good. I…I don’t want to be in the same situation as my aunt and uncle, for god’s sake.”

Oh. Oh! His aunt and uncle…the ones in Ireland that Tom had mentioned he’d planned to send Paul to…they were interned, weren’t they? Why…oh god. If Paul thinks he can be interned for making a mistake…

“Hm. I think we should talk about that more when we get home, okay? It’s not bad or anything, just, a bit longer than I can explain right now, okay?”

Paul blinked at him slowly, before nodding.

“I…okay. Um, so. Where are these backpacks, then?”

\-----

Millbee and Dinnerbone milled around the electronic games section. Dinnerbone had mentioned that he’d gotten more spending money from working on some mods, and wanted to see if there were any games he wanted.

“Oooo, these look nice.”

“Eh, a bit expensive for what you get, really.”

“Maybe so.”

Dinnerbone looked over at Millbee for a moment before continuing to speak.

“So, what aren’t you telling me? After what we talked about last night, you got that look in your eye, like you’ve got some plan. A bad plan!

“It’s not a bad plan at all! It’s a perfectly good plan!”

“Well, what is it, then, hmmm, hmmm?”

“He’s afraid of slipping up, right? Well, how is anyone going to remember or notice if I, you know, do my thing?”

“Your ability to rapidly cause large scenes and make everyone focus only on you, you mean?”

“Well, yeah! I mean, if everyone is paying attention to me, how could they possibly be paying any attention to the Irishman, right, right??”

“I…guess. Would that mean I’d need to like, get him out of said situation then, Millbee?”

“Oh! Probably so. But you’re good at telling when I go off, so it shouldn’t be that hard to tell, right?”

“I suppose so, yeah.”

Dinnerbone stared at Millbee for a moment before leaning over closer to him.

“But Millbee, remember, you haven’t really gone off at school for about two years now. Got to have a good reason to do so, or at least, a plausible one.”

“Dinnerbone, we just got a random cousin dropped on us, whose mother is sick. I can fairly easily claim its cause it reminds me of what happened when my mam died.”

Dinnerbone blinked before grabbing Millbee and hugging him quickly.

“Yeah, that will probably do, yes.”

\-----

After some time, Baj and Pyro made their way to the front, with a trolley full of very plain items. Baj was counting as a win the clothing he’d gotten him to choose that was green. There was, of course, no really red clothing, but that might have been expected.

“Well, I think we’ve got everything.”

“I think so, yes. Course, you know how it works, there will always be something we’ve forgotten, heh!”

“Ha, that’s true. Now all we need to do is wait for Nathan and Max.”

\-----

Not too long after that, Millbee and Dinnerbone came bouncing over to them.

“I’ve got some new sneakers, is that okay?”

“And I’ve gotten a new pair of headphones, but I’ll go pay for them.”

“Okay, Max, add your stuff to the pile, then.”

Millbee nodded before tossing the shoe box onto the register along with the rest of Pyro’s things.

“So, did you find everything okay?”

“Ah, yes. I think we’ve gotten plenty of stuff now”, Pyro said, looking mildly uneasy.

“Ah, good, good.”

The cashier rung up their items, looking as bored as ever.

“Did you find everything okay today?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Rewards card?”

“Yes, here” Baj said, handing over the card.

“Cash or Credit?”

“Credit”, as he gave her the card.

\-----

Pyro watched as the total continued to increase. He didn’t really want to cause Uncle Baj to spend so much money, but he had kept insisting he needed the stuff.

They packed the stuff into the trolley before heading off.

“I think we did pretty well today, got a good amount of stuff for the price.”

“Thank you, Uncle Baj.”

“Of course! You need the stuff.”

\-----

Of course he needed the stuff. Then again, it wasn’t all that generous of Baj, he thought. Tom had sent him money to cover Paul’s school supplies and clothes.

“Let’s stop at Pret a Manger1 for some lunch.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 A fast food place in England. I am pretending they are near one where they are, though I don’t actually know where all the chains are. See here- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pret_a_Manger


	9. Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning-There is more shouting and anxiety in this chapter.

Pyro settled down into the window booth with his sandwich and soda. Millbee was sitting next to him while across from them was Baj and Dinnerbone, with Baj sitting next to the window directly across from Pyro.

It had been a long day, and it wasn’t even half way over. And now Uncle Baj wanted to talk to him about things? That was odd, anyways, since there wasn’t really anything to talk about.

“Thank you for lunch."

“You’re welcome.”

\-----

Baj sighed softly as they drove back home, contemplating. He was trying to think of how to word things to Paul, particularly since it seemed his method of ‘dealing’ with things was to simply start to shut down entirely. Which, Baj thought, might help, so to say, in a place like the province, but it certainly didn’t help Baj any.

\-----

Pyro curled up against the window in the back seat of the car. He was very tired, and not looking forward to getting back to Uncle Baj’s house.

Talking. He liked talking to people, but only when they talked back with him. He really wanted to get his laptop out and talk to his friends online; he hadn’t been able to do so last night, since he had wanted to be up early enough for today. And look what that got him, singing songs he shouldn’t have been singing, and now Uncle Baj wanted to talk to him about stuff and not drawing attention to himself or something.

He wondered what Baj would want him to do about this. His father had been telling him to be polite and to do as Baj told him to do and if he didn’t, well…

He didn’t really want to think about his father’s friends. Father probably wouldn’t really send him to them, but still. He thought it more likely that he’d be interned before father would let him anywhere near squaddies, ex or not.

Of course, as he thought about it, occurred to him that if he wasn’t good, it was even easier for Baj to deal with than even father. This was England, that place that half his family hated with such passion. They’d often talk about the Irish men and women held in English prisons, and how they were held there with even less reason than those interned at home. If that was the case…but he was still too young even for that, wasn’t he? He hadn’t heard of anyone interned that was younger than sixteen, maaaaybe fifteen at the youngest. And he was still three months from his fifteenth birthday. So that was unlikely to happen, right?

\-----

“Well, we’re home. Nathan and Max, why don’t you go out back for a bit while Paul and I get his stuff settled?”

Millbee and Dinnerbone shared a quick look before looking back at Baj.

“Okay. We’ll make dinner, okay?”

“Okay, that’s fine.”

With that, they shared another look before running off.

\-----

Baj and Pyro carried Pyro’s things into the guest room and put them on the bed. Once everything was on the bed, Baj closed the door before looking towards Pyro.

“So.”

Pyro looked at him, very carefully blank, but still far more nervous than he would like.

“What is it, sir?”

\-----

Baj had realized that whenever Paul became that...polite…seemed to mean he was getting rather more worried.

“You seem to be concerned about drawing any sort of attention to yourself.”

“Ah...”

“No, I haven’t finished.”

“Sorry sir”

There that was again, with calling him sir.

“The thing you have to understand is, just by being here…you’re different. People will notice you. It’s unavoidable. But. It’s also not a bad thing. For one thing, everyone will be expecting you next week, given that Max and Nathan will certainly be talking about it. And…”

Baj paused, trying to collect his thoughts. Paul seemed to be watching him in the manner of someone who was trying to look like they weren’t watching something or, in this case, someone.

“Look. If you do do something wrong, your teachers would tell you. They’d deal with it then. Or call me. Nothing beyond that. You’re a kid, for god’s sake; no-one’s going to intern you or anything.”

\-----

Pyro blinked at Baj, slowly.

“I…sir, while I have every reason to believe what you are saying is true, I don’t particularly trust the whole of the country to suddenly decide to react that way to me simply because I’m here from no fault of my own.”

He wasn’t sure that made sense.

\-----

“I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean. You’re under my…purview, no-one can really do anything without my permission. I’m your temporary legal guardian.”

Did he really think that the whole of England would turn against him if he did something wrong, just for being Irish?

\-----

“Ah, well, sir, you see. I DON’T REALLY RECALL ANYONE ASKING THE PARENTS OF THE TEENAGERS HELD AT LONG KESH OR CRUMLIN ROAD IF THAT’S WHAT THE GUARDIANS WANTED DONE. So, respectfully, it’s not as though you’d have much say in that, sir.”

Íosa Críost, cén fáth go raibh sé ag rá go bhfuil? 1

“I, I, I, I’m sorry sir. I, I, I don’t, I’m sorry.”

Paul started rocking back and forth, mumbling about how he was very sorry and he should never have said that, and of course Uncle Baj was right, and he should never have doubted that.

\-----

Baj was terribly lost and way out of his comfort zone. All he could remember was when Max had come to live with them, after Beth had passed away.

“Paul. Paul. Breathe Paul. You need to breathe.”

Paul only stopped his litany long enough to take a short breath before starting again.

“Ah, no, no, stop, it’s okay, everything is okay.”

Paul instantly stopped the litany though he was still crying, and was now staring at Baj, shivering, but not making any sound at all, despite the crying.

“Paul. It. It’s fine. You’ll be fine. You don’t have to believe me, you’ll be able to see for yourself when you go to school next week.”

Paul continued to stare at him, shivering.

“You…are you going to be okay? Do you want something to drink?”

“No, sir. Thank you, sir. I’m sorry, sir.”

Oh. That’s just great.

“Look, just…remember you’ll be fine. I…I’m going to go have some tea and…watch the television. You do…whatever you want. Stay here till dinner or go out and join your cousins, doesn’t matter. Whatever you want to do.”

Baj slowly backed his way over to the door before opening it carefully and slowly leaving, closing it very carefully behind him, as though afraid Paul might suddenly explode if Baj wasn’t extremely calm.

\-----

Paul very slowly put everything on the bed away, before curling up on it and crying for a good long time.

He hated crying, but he felt as though there was nothing else he could really do at this point. He sighed before pushing himself back upright. It would be a good hour and a half before they had dinner; he had to look decent before then. And he could…

He got up and set up his laptop in record time. He very quickly logged on, before sending a quick message to his best friend (and favourite cousin) that he wanted to talk later that night. As soon as he did that, he logged back off and shut down the computer.

Once done with that, he went to use the bathroom. It was attached to the guest bedroom, of which he was very thankful for. It meant he didn’t have to leave the room at all to get cleaned up.

Once cleaned up, he felt better, though he was still cold, despite the warmth of the shower.

\-----

Baj groaned. He thought he better call Tom after dinner. He could…he could call Lassarina, though. She was still in the hospital, of course, but she could take calls now. Or not, he didn’t want to upset her while she was recuperating.

He sighed before going to listen to see if Paul was still in his room. He stopped once he heard the shower running.

As he knew that Paul was still in the room, he walked towards the back of the house quickly, before quietly going outside.

\-----

Millbee and Dinnerbone looked up as Baj came out the back of the house. Millbee thought that he looked very…tired and drawn. That…was very unlikely to be a good thing.

They both bounced over to Baj and waited for him to talk.

“Boys…please make dinner early tonight. And…if Paul wants to talk to either of you, for the love of god, let him.”

“Okay dad. Is he upset about something, or do you know?”

“I…yes. Yes he is, but you’ll have to let him say it himself. I only partly know what’s wrong myself.”

Millbee shrugged at Baj, helplessly.

“Okay then. We’ll do our best. Go have some more tea.”

Tea had always calmed Baj down when he got upset, he really hoped it still did.

Baj nodded at them before going back inside.

\-----

They both stared at each other for a very long while.

“Welp. That can’t be good.”

“Nope. Not at all. Let’s go make dinner, then.”

“I suppose so, it is four thirty already.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations/Notes!
> 
> 1 Jesus Christ, why did he say that? – It’s what he’s thinking to himself as soon as he finished shouting at Baj about prisons and teenagers.


	10. Chapter Seven

Pyro shivered slightly as he stared at his computer. Uncle Baj hadn’t done anything yet, but they still had dinner. Father would give him food and send him to his room when he was bad, Uncle Baj might do that as well. He wondered if this room could lock from the outside. He knew it couldn’t lock from the inside, he’d already looked.

Regardless of whatever punishment Uncle Baj was going to give him, he’d already decided what he was going to do tomorrow. Tomorrow was Sunday, and he had found out that there was a Catholic Church not two miles from the house. He intended to get up plenty early enough to walk there, with the map he had written down.

\-----

Baj sighed as he stared at his tea. He could hear the boys making dinner, but had heard nothing from Paul’s room since he had finished his shower.

He was entirely uncertain of how to convince Paul that he was safe here and that nothing was particularly bad was going to happen to him while he was living here. He knew, of course, that what Paul wanted was to go home, but that was impossible.

Hm.

Perhaps he could call his mother and let him speak to her for a few moments? She wouldn’t be able to speak for long, but it might help Paul relax some if he heard her voice.

A few moments and one phone call later and he had his answer. She’d be able to talk to Paul after dinner and was looking forward to hearing from him.

\-----

Millbee and Dinnerbone hustled about the kitchen, preparing dinner. It consisted of fish they were baking in the oven, a box mix for mashed potatoes, and a microwave bag of something they thought use to be corn.

They were both worried, they’d heard nothing from either dad or Pyro since dad had talked to them earlier. And given that they thought they’d heard shouting before dad had come out to talk to them, well…that couldn’t possibly be a good thing.

“So, yeah. Dinner. Dinner is looking good.”

“Yes. Um. I’ll set the table.”

Millbee sighed to himself as he grabbed the place settings and put them out. He didn’t really know how to get people to discuss things, and he figured that what needed to happen was for everyone to talk without freaking out at each other and remaining calm. But that was so not something he was good at doing.

Dinnerbone mumbled softly. Everyone needed to talk, without freaking out. How to do that was a good question, though. He had a suspicion that Pyro had learned early on that talking to anyone in any sort of position of power just made things worse. Now, though…he and Millbee…he didn’t think Pyro would necessarily see them as having any real power. This might be a good thing, in this case. You could get from the guest bedroom to the upstairs from the hallway, which, he though, Pyro may have noticed. If he had, then he could easily come up to them to talk to them.

Now, how to get him to realize that, then?

\-----

Dinnerbone chewed on his lip as he walked down to the guest bedroom. Once they’d put the food on the table, Millbee had gone to tell dad that dinner was ready, so he’d gone to get Pyro.  
He stood in front of the door for a few moments, contemplating it.

knock knock knock

The sounds of someone abruptly falling out of a chair could be heard before they moved to near the door.

Dinnerbone stared at the door, as Pyro hadn’t said anything. Why, was he waiting for him to say something?

“Um, Pyro, it’s dinner time.”

“Oh.”

“So, um…” Dinnerbone mumbled as he pulled open the door. Focused as he was on opening the door, he failed to notice Pyro backing up quickly as he did so.

“Eeeeeeeh. Um. Um. Dinner? I…am I welcome to it?”

Dinnerbone blinked. Soooooo, just what happened early that made him think he wasn’t going to get fed?

“Wha? Yeah, of course. That’s why I’ve come to get you for dinner.”

“Oh. Thank you. Yes. Thanks.”

Dinnerbone shook his head slightly as Pyro exited the room and closed the door behind him. He shrugged when Pyro didn’t move from there and he turned back towards the kitchen and started walking. Pyro started to follow behind him, which he realized, was probably what Pyro was waiting for him to do, go where the food was.

\-----

Baj and Millbee sat at the table as Dinnerbone and Pyro entered the room. They both sat down as Baj and Millbee watched them.

“It’s, um….fish. With mashed potatoes and corn.”

“Ah, yeah. We’ve got some tartar sauce, if anyone wants it?”

\-----

Baj took some of the food, while watching Paul. He looked very drawn and tired, but he looked cleaned up and not as messy as one would think crying would cause. Makes sense, thought Baj, he did take a shower after all. Perhaps he took the shower after he stopped crying, so that he could be clean for dinner.

\-----

Pyro bowed his head in prayer, trying to ignore them staring at him.

Once he finished, he looked up at them. All four of them stared at each other for a long moment, before Baj made a sweeping motion with his arm towards the food and then towards Pyro.

He took that to mean to take some of the food, which he then did.

”Thank you, sir.”

\-----

They spent the rest of the meal in uncomfortable silence.

As soon as they finished eating, they all quickly put the dishes away before standing around the table staring at each other.

Baj was the first one to break the silence.

“Max, Nathan. Why don’t you go buy us some…ice-cream… from the store down the street?” he said, handing fifteen pounds to Millbee.

They both stared at him for a long moment.

“Oh…okay…then…we’ll be back soon.”

At that, they both slowly made their way to the front door, before leaving.

\-----

“Paul.”

“Yes, sir?”

Baj sighed and pulled out his cell phone before calling the room number he’d called early to talk to Lassarina.

“Here. It’s your mother. I called her earlier; she can talk to you now.”

Paul blinked at him before taking the phone.

“Thank you, sir.”

\-----

Well, that was very confusing. Why was he letting him talk to ma?

"Dia duit, Pádraig, tá tú ann?"1

“Hello mummy. Yes, I’m here.”

"Cén chaoi a bhfuil tú ag déanamh?"2

“I’m…fine. How are you doing, mummy?”

"Níos Fearr, go raibh maith agat. Cén chaoi a bhfuil sé le do uncail?"3

“Everything is fine, mummy.”

"Pádraig, ní gá duit Béarla a labhairt liom nuair a tá gach rud breá. Cad atá cearr?"4

"Tá brón orm, Tá mé ag iarraidh a bheith go maith anseo. Ní dóigh liom go bhfuil mé ag déanamh an ceart sin, cé."5

"Oh ... ceart go leor ansin. Tabhair aire, éisteacht le do uncail. Is breá liom tú, Pádraig."6

"Is breá liom tú, máthair."7

With that, Paul handed the phone back to Baj. He figured that ma had probably hung up at that point, particularly since he hadn’t said he was going to give the phone back to Uncle Baj.

\-----

Baj looked at Paul and sighed.

“Maybe you’ll be able to talk to her in the future more, hmm?”

“Yes sir, that would be nice.”

“Right.”

Paul stared at him for a long moment.

“What do you want me to do now, sir?”

What the hell was he supposed to do? He wasn’t certain…though…

“Just…look, just go to your room and think about what I told you. We’ll talk tomorrow. Remember, lights out by ten.”

Pyro looked at him and nodded at him.

“Yes sir. I’m sorry.”

With that, he turned and quickly went to him room and shut himself in.

\-----

Dinnerbone and Millbee returned from the store shortly with the ice-cream.

They both blinked when they opened the front door and saw Baj standing there, waiting for them.

“Hello.”

“Um, hi dad?”

“Would you please put Paul’s ice-cream away? He’s in his room, and won’t be having any ice-cream. Thank you.”

“He…why not?”

Baj looked at Millbee as though Millbee was skirting very close to being sent to his own room.

“Because I said so.”

Both of them stared at each other before handing over Baj’s own ice-cream and going into the kitchen to eat their own.

\-----

Pyro sighed and logged into the messenger to talk to his friend. He was still thinking about what Uncle Baj had said about speaking with his mother. Did he mean that if he wasn’t good, he’d get no info on how she was doing? If that was the case, he had to figure out what it was that Uncle Baj wanted him to do, or act like, or whatever it was that he was doing wrong.

“Hello, are you still online?”

“Yes Pyro, I’m studying for midterms, what is it?”

“MC8, I don’t know what to do. My uncle is upset at me and I can’t even figure out why.”

“Have you tried asking him?”

“He’s sent me to my room, MC.”

“Oh. Well, try asking him tomorrow or something? Don’t you have your cousins on here? Why not ask them?”

“Yeh. Maybe, good idea.”

“Okay. Look, I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

“Right. Good night MC.”

“Goodnight Pyro.”

\-----

Dinnerbone looked around after Millbee had finished eating and had gone up to his room. Dad was in the living room with the television turned up and anyways, Dinnerbone knew how to be quiet. He quickly wrote a short note on a small piece of paper. He grabbed what would have been his second ice-cream bar (and leaving the one they got for Pyro) before sneaking over to Pyro’s room and quickly entering while hissing ‘shhhh’ at Pyro.

”Aaaah, Dinnerbone?”

“Yes. Here. Have ice-cream. I was told to not give it to you, but I thought it might make you feel better.”

“Dinnerbone, you can’t do that! If Uncle said no, you shouldn’t…”

“Its fine, he’ll have forgotten about it by the morning.”

With that, Dinnerbone pushed the ice-cream bar and note onto the desk before quietly leaving and closing the door quietly behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations and Notes!
> 
> 1 "Hello, Patrick, are you there?"
> 
> 2 "How are you doing?"
> 
> 3 "Better, thank you. How is it with your uncle?"
> 
> 4 "Patrick, you don't speak English to me when everything is fine. What's wrong?" He doesn’t normally speak English when he’s with his mother.
> 
> 5 "I'm sorry, I'm trying to be good here. I don't think I'm doing that right, though."
> 
> 6 "Oh...okay then. Take care, listen to your uncle. I love you, Patrick."
> 
> 7 "I love you, mother."
> 
> 8 Yes. It’s MCGamer. He’s distantly related to Pyro on his mother’s side. He was there on exchange when he was in grade school and is currently taking college classes at a University in Northern Ireland.


	11. Interlude, Three

Dinnerbone paced his room, concerned. He knew that Pyro must have read the note by now, but he had heard nothing from him. He was uncertain as to what to do now that he had gotten no reply.

ping!

Dinnerbone spun as he stared at his computer. He wasn’t aware of many people directly messaging him that way.

Hm.

Maybe Pyro wanted to contact him that way? He’d given him his name so he could find him, after all.

Hello, Dinnerbone? It’s Pyro.

Dinnerbone swiftly went over to the computer to see that it was indeed Pyro. Well, it had the username that he was really pretty sure Pyro was using.

Yes, this is Dinnerbone. What do you need?

Um…I wanted to talk to you, um; maybe you can come down here?

Dinnerbone blinked at that. He was really certain that he’d better not leave his room, looked like, then.

Sure, be down in a moment.

With that he logged off and made his way quietly to the door, before slinking down the stairs. He knew that dad had already gone into his own room, he normally would watch the news and then watch the television in his own room after that, if they didn’t choose to play any board games or anything. However, with Pyro still so…concerned, he figured to be extra quiet so that he wouldn’t be as concerned about dad hearing him.

He moved as quietly as he could, before quickly opening the door to Pyro’s room and entering it, before closing the door carefully behind him.

\-----

Pyro watched as the door opened, praying that it was Dinnerbone.

He exhaled softly, relaxing when he saw that it was indeed Nathan.

“Hey. Thanks for coming down.”

“Sure. Wait. Why are we whispering?”

Pyro blinked at Dinnerbone. It wasn’t obvious why they were whispering?

“Cause I don’t think you’re supposed to be here, so…um…I don’t really want to get you in trouble, but I wanted to talk to you.”

“Oh, okay. Look, I don’t even pretend to understand what’s wrong, and I’ve dealt with Millbee freaking out on a regular basis for the last eight years.”

“I…”

Pyro sucked on his teeth, trying to figure out how to word things.

“Home, I understand home. Keep your mouth shut, never talk to the army, protect your community against the invaders, protest. That’s simple. But here…”

He shrugged slightly.

“Here, I’ve got no idea what Uncle wants me to do. I mean, everything he seems to want would put me directly at risk, and that’s just…he can’t actually want that, everyone has said he’s a good guy, so he can’t possibly actually want me to do that!”

\-----

Dinnerbone pondered what Pyro was saying, from where he was sitting on the bed.

“No, but. He doesn’t see it as you putting yourself at risk.”

How to put this? It was such a strange thing.

“This is a hard thing to explain but. Things that help you in the province won’t help you here. It. You were, well.”

“I was what?”

“You were born and raised in a war zone. That -does- things to a person, Pyro! It’s not good.”

“I…”

\-----

A war zone? He knew his family had called it that, but that the British government had never called it that. Something about legitimacy or something. Why would Dinnerbone refer to it that way?

“I…what do you mean? My life has been pretty good, you know.”

Dinnerbone sighed at him.

“No. Not…maybe compared to others there, but not the same as someone not in a war zone. It...okay, for example. I can go wherever I want, when I want. If I talk to the army, it’s only cause there was some kind of natural disaster, and they’re almost unfailingly polite. I’ve got no worries about being arrested for being in the wrong place, and I’ve never been barred from going somewhere based on my…ethnicity. It just…doesn’t happen. I mean, we all know somewhat about what’s happening over there, but…there are only a handful of places that are affected here. More now, but…it’s just…”

Pyro sighed. He didn’t get it, did he?

“Dinnerbone. I can understand that, but…it’s…just how many Irish nationals do you think are here that -aren’t- doing…things? Not many, okay? So…the most common thing would be to assume that’s what I am.”

“Look. What I’m saying is that you need to trust dad when he says he’s trying to do the best he can, and that we will do our best to protect you. I -know- this doesn’t help with how people would view you, but really, you’re still a kid! And besides, this place is pretty dang mixed. And I don’t just mean with Welshmen, ha! There are kids here from all over the commonwealth, hell, there’s at least one Nepali kid here currently. If anything, the school is simply not going to care who you are or where you’re from, as long as you, you know, don’t try to…um…”

“Don’t try to blow shit up, you mean?”

“Well…honestly, yeah.”

“Yeah, that’s…not something to worry about. Don’t know anything about that. I’m pretty good at holding signs at protests, though!”

“Right. Okay. Um, tomorrows Sunday, so, how about in the afternoon, Millbee and I show you where the local park is? It’s got some cool stuff, and a really nice food stand.”

“Really? That would be nice, thanks.”

Well, provided it was after he got back from mass and confession, yes.

“Well, um how about like, at 2pm or so?”

“Sure. Sounds good to me.”

2pm would certainly solve that problem.

With that, Pyro watched Dinnerbone carefully exit his room and quietly close the door behind him.

It was…nice, in a way, to know that Dinnerbone was concerned about him. But…it was just so strange. Trying to think about how things worked here, when it was so different from home, and yet so close by. Just…hard to fathom, really.

Well, maybe tomorrow would be better. Going to church almost always helped him, so he had some hopes for the morning.


	12. Chapter Eight

Pyro whistled to himself as he walked down the road. It was a decent day out, overcast, but not raining or windy. A pretty typical spring day, all told. He had found it nice enough that he could leave his window open last night, which was useful, since that’s how he’d gotten out of the house this morning. He wasn’t sure if he was locked in, and besides, he didn’t have a house key or anything.

He saw the church up ahead and smiled to himself. The church sign confirmed what he’d looked up last night, that the first mass was eight a.m. He intended to go to confession afterwards, since it had been a few weeks since he was able to last go, what with ma in the hospital.

A brief thought occurred, he didn’t actually know what church his uncle and cousins would go to today, nor how long their service would last. He figured it had to be before noon, or Dinnerbone wouldn’t have suggested two p.m. as a good time to go out, though.

He shrugged to himself as he kept walking. It looked like he was about three-quarters of the way there, and appeared to be doing well with the time. He noticed that a few other people were walking, but most seem to have driven here, instead.

There was a brief thought, there. Are the little old ladies here as nosy as the ones back home? And the very quick answer of, yes, yes they are. Several old ladies started to converge on him, after having apparently discussed the fact that they hadn’t seen him before. They were all dressed up in their best Sunday finery, and were wearing very nice hats and mantillas1.

“Hello there! I haven’t seen you around before! New, are you?” said the first one to catch up to him.

“Yes ma’am.” Honesty might be the best thing, but discretion is the better part of valor, after all.

“Where are your parents, young man?”

“Oh. I’ve been staying with my uncle; my parents are a bit…ill.”

“Oh, that’s no good there! But, why isn’t your uncle with you, then??”

Pyro slowly blinked at the nice old ladies who were now walking with him up to the front of the church.

“Well, you see, he’s not Catholic.”

“Oh! Well then, I suppose that makes sense.”

“Wait just a moment; he didn’t make you walk all this way by yourself, now did he?”

Pyro blinked at the second old lady for a long moment as they stood to one side of the steps.

“He…hasn’t made me do anything. I, um, I choose to walk here.”

“Child, you have to live at least two miles from here, everyone in the vicinity is Catholic and we’d have known you were coming! Even if he isn’t Catholic, that’s no reason to make you walk that far!”

“Um…it’s not really that far. I walked farther to school back home, actually. And besides, it’s once a week, not bad at all!”

They all tutted at him, saying it was a shame to make him walk, but if he was that determined, well then.

“Well, at least ask him to drive you next week, okay? The weather can be quite unpredictable here, you know!”

“Of course ma’am.” That wasn’t likely to happen, he thought. In all likelihood, he was going to have to walk, even if Baj agreed, just from the fact that they would be going to different churches.

\-----

Pyro smiled to himself as he listened to the sermon. This priest wasn’t particularly fast, but he also wasn’t very slow. He also sounded Irish, which Pyro found fairly interesting. He knew, of course, that priests got moved around, but he hadn’t thought to hear any familiar accents while he was here. Of course, thinking about it lead to the fact that Ireland, was, after all, just a stone's throw away, and bringing priests here from there would be far easier than bringing them from the continent or from elsewhere.

As the service concluded, Pyro got up to join the fairly small group staying for confession.

\-----

Pyro murmured to himself as he took confession. This priest was very nice. And Irish, as well. Seemed to be from County Tyrconnell2, actually, which explained why his accent was so familiar. His confession wasn’t terribly long, though the priest did tell him that if he had any family problems, to remember he could always come to the church for help, which he had already known.

\-----

He whistled happily as he walked back to the house. He certainly felt better for having gone to church, it made him happier.

He was aware that having gone out the window to leave, he would have to get back inside the same way, but really now, he didn’t have a house key! And he’d left the window open, but the screen back closed when he’d left, so, it should be fine. It was 10:45 a.m. now, but he thought he should be fine, if their church was farther away, after all.

Pyro quietly moved around the house, thankful that the place had a very high privacy fence, so no-one would see him entering the house in a very unorthodox manner.

What he saw upon being able to see into the window, however, stopped him dead in his tracks.

\-----

Meanwhile back at the house

Baj woke up at about 9 a.m.

He puttered about for a bit, getting cleaned up and dressed. He figured none of the boys would be around until about 9:30, so he decided to make himself a nice breakfast.

Both Dinnerbone and Millbee did, in fact, wake up and come down around when he thought that they would. They made themselves up some breakfast and sat around talking about what school was going to be like the next day.

It was at around 10 a.m. that they all finally noticed that Pyro hadn’t come out of his room yet.

At this point, Dinnerbone announced that he would go and talk to Paul by himself.

“So, yeah. I’ll go see what’s wrong; I was talking to him last night online.”

“Okay, thanks.”

\-----

Dinnerbone sighed softly as he knocked quietly on the door before letting himself in.

A quick look around the room turned up a surprising lack of Pyro, and with the bathroom door open, quickly showed there was an entire lack of Pyro anywhere within the rooms.

“God damn it, where the hell did you go?” he hissed quietly to himself.

As he looked around the room, he noted that all of Pyro’s electronics and clothing was still here. Well…no…there was a travel case, one of those really nice ones, and one of those nice ones for shoes, it was open, and had nothing in it. The sort of clothing you’d have in it, Dinnerbone thought, like Sunday finery, or something.

Sunday finery…

Today is Sunday.

And Pyro is Catholic. They do still insist on Sunday finery.

And there’s the Catholic Church, just two miles from here.

Could he have gone there?

Well, it certainly looked like he had gone out the freaking window, so, it was starting to seem likely that he had, in fact, left to go to church. Without telling anyone, or leaving a note.

Dinnerbone groaned to himself as he flopped himself down into the chair at the desk, and whipped out his phone to text Millbee.

Hey. Keep dad distracted for a while, K?

Sure, why?

It’s taking longer than I thought. Play board games. In the kitchen.

Oh…k. When do you think?

Lunch. Noon. Whatever. Thanks sheepy.

No problem, good luck.

Dinnerbone glanced at the clock. It was 10:10 now. If he was right, then Pyro should…should arrive back at around 10:45, 10:50. He thought that made sense, with the distance, and the variable times that services took, from what he remembered. If he wasn’t back by 11, in any case, that’s when he was going to start panicking.

He turned the chair around the face the window and sat there, glaring at the window, until he finally thought he saw some movement from along the house in the direction Pyro oughta be coming from.

\-----

Pyro stared at the window. If he wasn’t mistaken…Dinnerbone was sitting in the desk chair and was glaring at him.

They both stared at each other for what seemed like forever, before Dinnerbone angrily indicated for him to get the hell into the room.

Pyro slunk over to the window and opened it before entering the room, not quite certain as to why Dinnerbone looked so pissed off.

“What the hell, Pyro?”

“I was at church!”

“Bloody idiot, you didn’t even leave a freaking letter!”

“Why? It’s Sunday, of course I’m going to church.”

Dinnerbone stared at Pyro before slowly placing his hand on his forehead, looking exasperated.

“Look. Just, go get changed, okay?”

“Sure…”

Pyro shrugged and grabbed a change of clothes, before going into the bathroom to change.

\-----

Dinnerbone groaned to himself. Pyro was really something else, wasn’t he?

He waited until Pyro came back out of the bathroom before glaring at him again.

“Right. We had no freaking idea that you’d left. Dad and Millbee are currently…Millbee is distracting dad. We have to be back out by noon, k?”

“Oh…but I thought it was obvious, I mean, didn’t you guys go to church earlier yourselves?”

Dinnerbone blinked at Pyro before snickering to himself.

“Pyro, Baj hasn’t gone since he was a kid, and Millbee threw a fit when dad tried to take him. Apparently, he only likes hymns when they’re in Welsh…and in my case, I just don’t really care to spend my Sundays that way.”

Pyro just looked at him as if the entire idea was an alien concept.

Soon enough, it was noon.

“Okay, let’s go.”

“Okay.”

With that, they both got up and left, Dinnerbone leaving first, and Pyro closing the door behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations/Notes!
> 
> 1 this thing- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantilla#In_Roman_Catholicism It’s a type of head covering.
> 
> 2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_Donegal also known as Tyrconnell in Irish.


	13. Chapter Nine

Baj watched as Nathan and Paul came into the kitchen at a little before noon. There was something not quite right about how they were acting, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Might need to talk to Nathan after they all ate, Paul couldn’t have eaten yet since he hadn’t left his room. Yup, that’s what he was going to do, grab Nathan before him and Max and Paul all went to the park that Max had mentioned they were going to go to earlier.

He watched as they both made themselves some sandwiches before sitting down. He and Max had already grabbed some sandwiches before the two of them had arrived, but had waited to start on them until they could get there.

He noted that Pyro prayed before he ate and was starting to wonder if he prayed before every meal.

He was mildly surprised when, instead of instantly eating after he finished praying, Paul instead looked up and said, “Thank you for lunch.”

\-----

Baj pushed back from the table when he was finished eating.

“Max, Paul, why don’t you two play some of the board games for a few minutes? Nathan, let’s talk real quick”, he said, standing up and indicating to Nathan to follow him.

They walked into the living room as Baj closed the door behind them.

\-----

Dinnerbone watched as Baj slowly turned to face him, before walking around to the middle of the room.

“So. How’s Paul, doing then?”

“He’s fine.”

“Really? I mean, two hours is a pretty long time to be talking, you know. Particularly as quiet as you two were.”

Dinnerbone looked distinctly uncomfortable at this.

“Really. Not like…one hundred percent awesome or anything, but good.”

“What did you talk about then?”

Dinnerbone looked at Baj blankly. Damn it, why was he so bad at thinking of things extemporaneously1?

“I, um. About, um, stuff.”

“Nathan…”

“I, ummmmmmmmm.”

“Nathan!”

“If I tell you, would you promise to not get mad?”

“Nathan, what are you not telling me?”

“Ummmmm. He, ummmmmmm.”

Dinnerbone swayed slightly, very unhappy.

“He, ummmm, he wasn’t there. He, ummmm, he had gone to the Catholic Church. I, ummmmm, I waited until he got back. Millbee didn’t know any of this!”

Baj looked at him with a very pained expression before slowly pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Really? He just…left? What did he do, Nathan, go out the window?”

“Yes, actually, he did. Carefully, what with his wearing of nice clothes, but…yes, yes he did.”

“Nathan.”

“Yes dad?”

“Go get Paul and bring him here, leave Max in the kitchen.”

“Yes dad.”

With that, Dinnerbone slunk out of the room to go fetch Pyro.

\-----

Baj flopped himself into a chair and stared at the wall. What the hell was he going to do about this? He couldn’t have Paul just up and leaving the house without telling anyone, for god’s sake!

\-----

Dinnerbone slunk into the kitchen, looking very upset.

“Pyro, dad wants you and me.”

At that, Millbee interjected, “Whatever’s happened, you gotta tell me tonight, k?”

“Sure Millbee. Um, Pyro?”

Pyro slowly got up and stared at him.

“Is my guess right?”

“Probably. I, ummmmm, I’m not good with questions, Pyro.”

Pyro simply sighed and turned to follow Dinnerbone.

“Lead on, then.”

They both made their way back to the living room where Baj was waiting for them.

“Hello. Please close the door, Nathan.”

Dinnerbone grimaced, and turned and closed the door behind him, before turning back to face Baj.

\-----

Baj mumbled to himself as he waited for the two of them to return.

Just what was he supposed to do about them? Nathan, that was one thing, he knew what his punishment was likely to be, he’d had been before, and it hadn’t changed. But Paul? He wasn’t certain as to what to do with him, at all.

He watched as they entered the room.

“Hello. Please close the door, Nathan.”

Nathan grimaced slightly at that as he turned and closed the door. So, at least he knew that what had happened was wrong.

“Oh, go on, sit down, then.” No use in keeping them standing, after all.

They both blinked at him before moving to where the couch was, and sitting down at both ends of it. Nathan simply looked upset and kept looking to check on Paul, while Paul was looking at anything other than Nathan or himself, while trying to disappear into the couch by all appearances.

Baj took a few calming breathes before turning to stare at Paul.

“Paul.”

“Y…yes sir?”

“Going…going to church is one thing. Not telling anyone where you’re going or when you’ll get back, is another thing entirely. You can’t just be running off and not telling anyone. Particularly not after you were supposed to still be in your room, damn it!”

Baj glared at Paul while shaking his head annoyedly, before turning to glare at Nathan.

“And you! He left, and you knew he was gone, but instead of telling anyone, you decide to cover it up instead!? God damn it Nathan, you know better than that! You know you’re supposed to tell someone these sorts of things!”

Baj swore softly to himself, quiet enough that they couldn’t quite hear what he was saying, but it didn’t sound very pleasant.

“Nathan, I think you already know what I’ll tell you. Go to your room, I’ll send Max up with your dinner. Be to school on time in the morning, you’re grounded for the rest of the week. Go. Now.”

He watched as Nathan slowly got up and slunk out of the room, closing the door behind him. He thought briefly of flipping the breaker to Nathan’s room, since all the bedrooms were on their own breakers, but decided against it. If Nathan got more…upset…about things, then he would, but not yet.

\-----

Pyro watched as Dinnerbone left the room. All he wanted to do was have the couch consume him whole at this point, and was making a valiant effort to make that occur.

As soon as Dinnerbone had left, Baj turned to glare at Pyro.

“Right then. Paul, if you want to go somewhere, you have to tell me. You’re a kid; you can’t just go gallivanting off somewhere just because you want to.”

Baj looked at him with an extremely vexed and annoyed expression. Pyro had no idea what Baj was about to do, but every possible bad thing he could do was instantly coming to the front of his mind. He’d said he wouldn’t be arrested or anything, but now, now he wasn’t so certain of that. Just what was he planning on doing? He knew Tom, he knew…he was English, was he going to have him interned? Or what? Every bad story about England and internment was springing to mind quite readily.

Pyro started shivering again as he waited for Baj to continue with what he was saying. This simply resulted in Baj glaring at him harder.

“I am grounding you as well. It will be until you start school next week. I’m also turning off the electric to your room so you can’t just go play with your electronics. Also, since I can’t seem to trust you to actually stay in your room when told, I’m going to take the door off so I can see where you are. Oh don’t look at me like that, you’ll have the bathroom door still, you can’t get outside from the bathroom anyways.”

Pyro slowly nodded at Baj, showing that he understood him. His shivering, however, didn’t stop.

“Also, I know you were given homework by your school, and the one here is sending some over tomorrow. I expect you to do all of the homework you have before you start school next Monday, do you understand?”

“Yes sir”, he said. They’d given him work for the rest of the year in case he couldn’t return soon, but…he’d figure something out. He’d say hide it, but…if it was found, that seemed a bad idea. Well, it was already kind of hidden in the luggage, maybe if he only took out a week’s worth at a time? That could work.

“Well? Get up and go get your homework out, then! I’ll come for the door once I finish with the breaker box! Go!”

Pyro jerked up right and stumbled for the door, barely closing it behind him, before he fell into the guest bedroom. He grabbed this week’s homework folder from his luggage and tossed it on the desk. Once he got the homework out, he scrambled to look for his calculator and the various pens and pencils he had.

\-----

Baj sighed as he went down into the basement to locate the breaker box. They mostly stored boxes of stuff down here, and it was very dusty.

“What the hell am I to do about this? And what the hell is going to happen next Sunday? He’ll still be grounded then, I mean, if he asks me on Saturday or something, then fine, that’s that, but if not…would he attempt to leave again? I fucking hope not.”

He growled to himself as he found the box and flipped the switch labeled as ‘guest room’ on it.

“God fucking damn it Paul, why? And god damn it Tom, I have…or possibly had a date this week on Wednesday! And now? And now? If those two don’t get their act together, god damn it. I’ll just, fuck, I’ll just call her and explain what’s been happening, hell, at least I told her about Paul coming here, but for fucks sake! I was looking forward to it!”

A moments more swearing and Baj narrowly realized he was about the punch the breaker box.

“Oh for fucks sake. Where the hell did the WD-40 get to? If I’m going to be removing pins from doors, need it…aha.”

Sighing, he picked up the WD-40 and headed back upstairs. As he got to the top of the stairs he noted that Max was nonchalantly waiting for him.

“No. Not now, Max.”

Max just looked at him and shook his head back and forth slowly, before leaving to go upstairs.

Bah! He could just deal with it, or hell, ask Nathan what’s happened. Nathan can’t leave his room, but hell, Max can certainly go talk to Nathan himself, damn it!

He angrily stalked off to the guest bedroom where he noted that Paul had left the door open.

Well, at least he figured that one out on his own.

With that, he quickly dismantled the door, completely ignoring Paul where he was either doing homework or pretending to do so. As soon as the door was off, he dragged it back down into the basement and put the pins on one of the higher shelves so they wouldn’t get lost.

Once done with that he stalked back up to Paul’s room.

“When it’s time for dinner, it will be brought to you, do you understand?”

“Yes sir”, Paul said looking up from his homework.

“Good. Get back to work.”

“Yes sir”, he said, looking back down at his homework and starting back on it again.

\-----

Pyro shivered as Baj left the second time. Once he was fairly certain that his uncle was in the living room instead of nearby, he slumped over and started to silently cry again. He had no idea what to do now, and he’d wanted to ask what he was supposed to do about next Sunday, but now he wasn’t certain. Maybe he could convince him to listen to him when he brought him dinner? That seemed like the best idea so far.

He sighed as he stared at his homework. This was going to be a very long week, even more so since he didn’t even dare to speak any Irish. Well, he thought, he probably could do so in the bathroom, actually. He had the distinct feeling that if he spent too long in the bathroom, though, that his uncle might start considering removing that door, as well.

\-----

Millbee paced around his bedroom, waiting until it was time to head down for dinner. He’d streamed some to kill time, but it hadn’t really worked, he was too distracted.

He knew that he and dad would eat first, and then he’d take food to Dinnerbone. And probably Pyro, he thought, but wasn’t certain if dad meant to do that himself. Given that he seemed damn intent on making sure Pyro was in his room, probably he would. What had he done, left the house or something? No-one had told him, and now he had to wait till dinnertime to find out, damn it!

Shrugging to himself, he turned back around and flopped down on his bed, counting the ceiling tiles one more time in an effort to kill some time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes!
> 
> 1 extemporaneously, in this case, speaking off the cuff, spontaneously. Dinnerbone is very bad at this.


	14. Chapter Ten

Baj sighed as he hung up the phone. He was very glad that his girlfriend, Ms. Bayou1 was so understanding about the whole situation. She’d suggested that instead of them going out on Wednesday, that she’d come over instead, since it had been a while, and then she could see the whole thing first hand. She’d been over before, and both Max and Nathan got along well with her, so he was hoping that things would continue to go well with them. He would let Nathan and Paul eat dinner with them, of course…well, as long as they behaved beforehand.

It was probably one of the few things currently going right, thought Baj. Now all he had to do with make dinner and survive it.

\-----

Pyro murmured to himself as he worked on his homework. He’d been alternating between doing his work and praying to himself, as doing the working straight through was starting to make himself cross-eyed. Trying to stick to English for the prayers, he quickly lapsed and had been praying in Irish for some time now. He’d been crying on and off since he’d been sent to his room, he wasn’t quite certain what time it was now.

A sudden realization occurred, and he pulled out his cell phone. It was 5 pm now, hm. He had no idea when they normally had dinner, he had the impression his arrival had thrown everything off schedule for them. It was still annoying and painful, he’d only had the sandwich for lunch, and nothing else since yesterday, but that was okay, it wasn’t like he would starve, or anything.

At least, he didn’t think so. Uncle Baj had said he’d bring him dinner, hadn’t he? He wasn’t so sure, now. And he could smell food being made, chicken and rice and he thought he smelled corn…it smelled very good. He hoped that Baj would bring him food soon, and not jerk around with it, bring it, but not give it to him, and so on. He thought it possible that his uncle might dress him down again before he gave him the food, but he could withstand that well enough, he knew.

\-----

Millbee glanced around the kitchen as he helped Baj make dinner. Neither he nor Dinnerbone much liked making food when the other wasn’t there to make jokes and talk, it was much too boring. And dad didn’t seem in the mood to talk much at all.

He sighed softly as Baj put out the place settings and served out the food for Millbee and himself.

They both sat there silently eating their dinner. Once they were done, they put their dishes away, and Millbee stood there, waiting for Baj to say something.

Baj silently made up two plates of food and drink and handed one set to Millbee.

“Here. Take it to your brother.”

“Okay.”

With that, Millbee turned and left, taking the food upstairs.

\-----

Baj sighed to himself as he took the food down to Paul’s room. It was 6:45 pm now, he had to be fairly hungry at this point.

He was mildly surprised that Pyro had noted that he had entered the room, but had kept working on his homework rather than turning to get at the food. He certainly looked hungry, if the faint look of pain was anything to go by.

Baj didn’t say anything, simply stood just inside the doorway, about two feet from where Paul and the desk were. He wondered briefly if Paul thought he was testing him or playing with him, what-have-you. Which, if he was honest, wasn’t too far off the mark, after all.

“Paul.”

With that, Paul finally turned around to face him, though he still wasn’t quite looking at him.

“Yes, sir?”

Baj looked at Paul for a long moment.

“Are you hungry?”

Paul looked at him looking far more pained than he was a moment ago. Ah yes, he thought, I know it’s a stupid question, but I still want you to answer it.

“I…yes sir, I am.”

Baj looked at him a moment longer.

“Do you understand why you can’t just be leaving when you want to, at least not when you don’t tell people where you are going?”

Paul looked at him, starting to visibly twitch, whether it was from hunger or annoyance, though, he couldn’t tell.

“Yes sir. But…I have to go to church, don’t you see? It’s not something I can just…stop doing…”

“Sure, but you have to tell me where you’re going, there are, quite simply, things you can’t be doing.”

Paul looked at Baj for a moment, taking a slow breath, appearing to try to keep himself calm.

“Yes sir. But, um…what of next Sunday, then? I have to go…”

Baj looked at Paul. Aha, so he was smart enough to ask that, good, good.

“Then I’ll drop you off and pick you back up, you see. I’ll take you there next Sunday, if you stay good.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Paul continued to stare at Baj for a few moments, whereupon he realized he still hadn’t given him his food. Ah, right.

“Here. Eat.” Once said, he put the food and drink down on the desk.

“I’ll be back shortly to get the dishes.”

“Thank you, sir.”

With that, Baj turned and left the room.

\-----

Pyro winced, prayed as quickly as he could, and inhaled the food and drink, both of which were far closer to room temperature now than he would have liked. But it was food, so that didn’t matter. And he wasn’t certain how long before Baj would return for the plates, after all.

At least…at least he knew that, barring anything unusual happening, he’d get to go to church next Sunday, and that made him feel better, by far.

Once done with the food, he put the plate and glass to the side and went back to his homework.

\-----

Dinnerbone happily took the dinner that Millbee had given him and eat it quickly.

“Dinnerbone, what happened?”

“Um, well. Pyro kinda…left the house and walked to the Catholic Church…”

Millbee blinked at him before flailing about for a moment.

“The hell? So, when you messaged me, he wasn’t there?”

“Right. I figured out where he’d gone, but yeah. So, um, I waited for him to return.”

“How’d you figure? He leave a note or something?”

Dinnerbone grimaced.

“No, if he’d have left a note, things might have gone better. He had carrying cases for nice clothes and shoes, and they were empty. Nothing else was gone and the window was open, though the screen was closed. It was the best bet. I was gonna say something if he wasn’t back by 11 am.”

Millbee looked at Dinnerbone for a long moment.

“Really now. You had no guarantee of where he even went, with no note…and didn’t tell any of us? Okay, I, um, I kinda see why dad’s grounded you, now.”

“Yeah.”

“So, um, how long you grounded for?”

“Until this time next week, I think.”

Millbee just sighed at this and grabbed the things to take back downstairs with him. Dinnerbone shrugged to himself before going back to his work.

\-----

Baj grabbed the dishes from Paul’s room before dumping them back in the kitchen. Paul had already closed the window, so he didn’t have to worry about that, but…he wasn’t certain how long really to keep the power off to the bedroom. Well, to be certain, he knew it was being turned back on by Wednesday night, since that’s when, mmm, Ms. Bayou was coming over. And he had the distinct impression she would not agree with him on the effectiveness of that particular punishment. He could, of course, turn it back off after she left…but hm. Maybe it would be best to wait to see how Paul does at that dinner, actually. If he’s good, then the power could stay on after that, with him still grounded, of course. A nice incentive, that, yes.

He sighed before heading off to his own bedroom to try and relax and sleep some more.

\-----

Pyro shivered as he sat in the doorway of the room, trying to finish his homework. It was too dark outside now for him to be able to see while sitting at the desk. He wondered when his uncle would go and turn out the lights, or if he even would. He might have forgotten they were on, after all.

He sighed slightly before finishing up his work. Once he was done, he put it back into his luggage, but separate from the rest of the work he had with him.

Shrugging to himself, he pulled out some night clothes and went to wash up before going to bed. He quickly realized that this was going to be…interesting…without any lights.

Twenty minutes later, after much swearing in Irish, Pyro finished his shower, and went back into the bedroom. He noticed that either Baj or Millbee must have turned off the other lights, since it was much darker now. He shrugged and climbed into the bed, staring at the ceiling. He knew that, at some point, his uncle was going to realize that all the homework he could do was not going to fill up a week’s worth of time, and what then? He sighed softly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes!
> 
> 1 Ms. Bayou, yes, it’s BlueBayou, who is, I understand, actually seeing Baj. Yup.
> 
>  
> 
> Do not link her this, she asked (a while ago) that she doesn't want to see or know about any fics with her in them.


	15. Chapter Eleven

Pyro sighed as he rolled out of bed. Once it had started to get light out, he had woken up. Given that he had already showered last night, he figured the best thing to do, since he couldn’t go get food, was to start on his homework again.

He sat at the desk, contemplating his work. Mostly what he was doing, however, was trying to work through what had happened and figure out why everything had gone so badly wrong.

Thinking it through, he wondered if he would be in quite this problem if that peace treaty had actually gone through. He knew that, in the early 90’s, there had been a slow building towards a treaty, but that had fallen through. He wasn’t quite certain as to why, something about the Conservative Party and a backlash against reconciliation with those fighting in Northern Ireland.

It was a pointless thing to think about, it wasn’t like he could know what a treaty would actually do. And if he remembered right, the treaty wasn’t to join the Republic, but to stop the fighting. He wondered if that meant, in an alternate timeline, if Ireland wouldn’t be so closed allied with the USA and if the UK would be more closely allied with them, instead…now, currently, the UK and USA were…very…cool…towards each other, after the treaty fell through. It made him surprised, sometimes, thinking about how strange it was that his cousin, MC, he meant, chosen to come on exchange first and then to college second, in what amounted to a warzone, particularly since his homeland didn’t much care for those who controlled the province.

He sighed softly to himself. He knew, really he did, that his uncle was a good guy. There was still…something…that made him so uneasy. This might be, he thought, because despite everything, he was still afraid of England and her people. It was an irrational fear, he knew, but…even when he noted that logically, the ones he knew to fear were the military and politicians, and his uncle was neither of those, well he thought he might have once been military, but his da hadn’t been too clear about that…still, he couldn’t help but be wary, always concerned about some ulterior motive, that his uncle would turn against him, and this, he knew, was silly, but he couldn’t help but fear it.

Pyro blinked suddenly when he realized that someone was staring at him from the doorway. He turned around to see that Baj was looking at him, holding something he thought might be a bagel and a glass of water.

He noted that it was probably around 8:30 now, he thought he had gotten about around 6:30 or so.

“Yes sir?”

Baj sighed at him again. He was starting to think that it might be because he didn’t like being called sir, but what did he want him to say, then?

“Paul, here, breakfast.” With that, he handed the bagel and water to Pyro, who noted that the bagel had cream cheese and lox on it.

“Thank you, sir.”

Baj looked at him before saying , “Oh, for the love of…stop calling me sir, I’m your uncle, damn it!”

Pyro blinked at him in surprise.

“Yes s…yes uncle.”

Baj made a very vexed sound before leaving once again.

\-----

Dinnerbone flopped into his seat for his first class, looking annoyed. He knew that Millbee would get Pyro’s homework today, and take it home, and all he had to do was survive school, but still, he was annoyed.

“Hey, Dinnerbone!”

Dinnerbone blinked and looked over at his friend. Well, new friend, he’d only started here this year.

“Oh, hey Shree. How you doing?”

“Fine, but you look pissed off. Something happen with that cousin of yours you mentioned last week?”

Ah, yeah, he’d forgotten about that. They’d gone to school on Friday, but dad had taken them out early to go get Pyro.

“Something like that. I’ve gotten myself grounded.”

Shree looked at him very confused.

“He’s been there, what, three days? How’d things go that badly?”

“What, no, I wasn’t fighting with him, if that’s what you mean.”

“Well then, what do you mean?”

“Well, ummm. It’s still kinda confusing, but um. He went down to the church, but didn’t tell anyone, and I kinda…covered for him…”

Shree laughed at that.

“Really? Wow. Why didn’t your dad take him to the church?”

“Uh, they had some kind of argument on Saturday, and he was supposed to be in his room. But he decided to walk to church instead.”

“That’s…strange…”

“There’s a lot strange about him, Shree. I think most of it is cause he’s from the province.”

Shree looked like he was going to respond to that but their teacher had arrived and was setting up for the class, so he simply shrugged at Dinnerbone and went back to his own seat.

\-----

Baj sighed. At some point, Paul was going to run out of work to do. And then get bored. And probably antsy, as well. None of which were good things when you’ve been grounded.

He grabbed some lunch for Paul and sighed to himself. Now, he knew that he could just…be very quiet and go see how Paul was doing without being heard, but he wasn’t sure if that was a good idea. Oh, whatever, it’s better than any other idea thus far!

Slowly he made his way toward the guest bedroom, still holding the plate. Paul still had the glass from this morning, so that was fine. He was being as quiet as he could be; now…Nathan, he knew, was far quieter than he could ever hope to be, but still, he’d learned it from him, well enough!

Stopping near the door, he stood so he could hear into the room and partly see Paul, but be seen that well. And it wasn’t like he could smell him; he’d brought a sandwich, not something very easily smelt.

Baj blinked in mild surprise. Paul sounded like he was praying softly, some in English and some not, interspersed with a kind of rambling commentary about wanting to go home and what home was like. He could, of course, stay here and listen to him talking about how pretty Belfast was in the spring and how he hated how damaged things got, from riots and bombs, but that didn’t seem like it would offer much in the way of help.

Shrugging, he moved and entered the doorway and stood inside of the doorway, waiting for Paul to notice him. Which, surprisingly took a few more moments of him talking about wearing green and being interned, which was something useful to Baj to know.

Paul blinked and swung around once he realized that Baj was standing there watching him.

“AAhh, s…uncle! I didn’t realize you were there, I’m sorry.”

Baj just shook his head slightly.

“It’s fine. Here, have some lunch.”

He handed the plate over to Paul and went and sat on the bed.

Paul looked at the plate, over to Baj and back to the plate. He shrugged slightly, prayed, and then ate the sandwich, fairly quickly. Once he finished eating, he turned around to look at Baj again.

“How is your homework coming along?”

“Pretty well, I think. I’ve got the Irish language stuff and some of the math stuff left.”

“How long do you think until you’re done with that?”

Paul sucked on his teeth thoughtfully for a moment.

“Probably another hour, maybe one and a half?”

“Okay. When you’re done, go wait in the living room, okay?”

Paul looked at him with some trepidation.

“Ah, no, wanted to talk about school.”

He visibly relaxed at that.

“Okay s…uncle, I’ll do that when I’ve finished this.”

“Mhm.”

With that, Baj got up and grabbed the plate as he left the room.

\-----

Pyro sighed and made his way into the living room, closing the door behind him. Baj wasn’t in there, which surprised him, but maybe he was working and waiting to hear him close the door.

He shrugged and sat down on the couch, the same place he had yesterday, and murmured softly himself. School here should, theoretically, work the same as back home, right? So why the need to talk to him about it?

Pyro shrugged and curled up into the couch, waiting for Baj to appear.

After a short while, the door opened and Baj walked into the room, closing the door behind him.

He moseyed on over to the chair he had sat in yesterday and sat down.

“When you finish your homework, what will you do, mail it back to your school?”

“Um. Yes, actually, I was given envelopes for that.”

“Good, good.”

Baj looked at Pyro for a long while, seeming to be trying to think of how to word something.

“Paul.”

“Yes, uncle?”

“Could you tell me what your home was like? Tom…doesn’t talk to any of us very much, to be honest, and it’s only ever about the base he’s on at any given time.”

Pyro blinked at Baj. Well, maybe so, that would explain why he seems so…oblivious…to certain things, things Pyro thinks doesn’t really happen here. Or at least, in this particular area, da talked about how the IRA had bombed Manchester before, after all.

“I…like what? I mean, I grew up on the Falls Road…went to a state school, though, since ma and da couldn’t agree on any other school. It’s mixed, I mean.”

Pyro sucked on his teeth.

“I suppose you mean the things like the bombs and the riots and the shootings, at least, those which actually get on the news here, yeah?” He knew that the news on the ‘mainland’1 rarely covered what happened at home, unless it was major or if the IRA was attacking the ‘mainland’.

“Is that a common thing, then?”

“Well, there is always something, every day. Something, somewhere in Northern Ireland. Bombs or shootings…protests. Always something.”

Pyro shrugs slightly, unfazed.

“But, like, it’s not something I see often. Well, the school gets bomb threats every so often, of course, but still. We go to the park, eat out, have fun, you know, normal stuff.”

He shrugged again, thinking about his home.

“I, hm. I live on the Falls Road, yeah. So, like, everyone knows I’m Irish, and that my family is nationalist, well, save for da, but he’s not really counted for this. So, yeah. I’ll get stopped, of course. And searched. And that becomes…mind-numbing after a while, you know? And it’s just like…they do this…because I might become a volunteer, or what have you. But that’s just…I mean, I protest, I already have, and they fire on protesters. There comes a point when you just get so…tired of it, and want to fight back. I don’t know, I mean, I know I’m too young for that, I just want to…live…for a while longer, before I even think about that, but the constant searching and accusations, just…they keep pushing and pulling me in that direction, and it’s maddening!”

He shrugged and curled up farther in to the couch.

“But, I mean. It’s a pretty place, once you get outside the parts that are bombed. So, the cities, I suppose! But yeah, it’s a nice place, and it’s my home, and I want to make my home better. I want it to be Irish, it is, but like…the island would be whole. It’s all broken and that’s…it would be like you losing Lancashire or Yorkshire, or something! They’d be there, you could get to them, but other people are holding them, claiming that they’ll never be English again. And I want my home whole and clean and pretty again, with its forests and rivers and whole buildings, not bombed, and and and you know?”

Baj blinked at him, softly.

“I, hm. That’s very…interesting, actually.”

Pyro blinked at him slowly.

“Not something you think about often? I’ve been told most people outside Northern Ireland, save for those in the Republic, don’t think about my home all that much.”

Baj grimaced at him.

“That’s true, I suppose. It’s quite unfortunate, really.”

Pyro shrugged and was going to answer, when he heard the front door opening.

“I do believe your cousins are home now, heh. Why don’t you go get the homework from Max and go do that?”

“Okay, I’ll go do that right away.”

With that, Pyro got up and left the room, closing the door behind him.

\-----

Baj pondered for a moment. He had a lot to think about, not least of which was that, at least, Paul had managed to not call him either sir or uncle as he left.

\-----

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes!
> 
>  
> 
> 1 There are two islands. Ireland, which has the Republic of Ireland on it, as well as the UK controlled Province of Northern Ireland on it. There is also the island of Great Britain. It has England, Wales, and Scotland on it. The United Kingdom is made up of the island of Great Britain and the Province of Northern Ireland, as well as an assorted lot of other smaller islands in the surrounding area. Calling Great Britain the mainland is something someone in Northern Ireland might call it, since the bulk of the UK is on that island.


	16. Chapter Twelve

Millbee and Dinnerbone blinked as Pyro entered the front hall, having come from the living room and not the bedroom as they had expected.

“Um, hi. Uncle said to get the homework from you?”

Millbee nodded and laughed.

“Yeah. The secretary took forever to find it; apparently it had gotten buried under other stuff.”

He laughed softly before pulling a folder out of his backpack and handing over to Pyro.

“She said that was the whole of it, since they figured you’d have already been given some from your home school.”

Pyro nodded in agreement at that.

“They did, thanks.”

With that, Pyro wandered off to his bedroom to get back started with his work.

\-----

Millbee and Dinnerbone both blinked as Pyro went back to his room, and then blinked again as Baj wandered out of the living room.

“Nathan, Max. We’re…all four of us, are going to have dinner in the kitchen tonight. Together. Be there, okay?”

They both shrugged at Baj.

“Sure dad.”

“Okay.”

Baj looked at them for a moment before heading off to do his own work.

\-----

Pyro sighed and stared at the homework.

He mumbled to himself, “It’s almost 5 pm now…”

Contemplating both this and what he could smell, he figured they would eat soon, and he’d get food sometime after that. He would have continued this thought; however he had finally noticed Millbee standing in the doorway looking at him.

“Yes Millbee?”

“Dad says to come to dinner.”

“Um…okay…?”

“Don’t ask me, I don’t know.”

Pyro shrugged and got up from the desk, almost falling over from having been sitting too long.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, fine, sorry.”

Millbee shrugged at him slightly and headed to the kitchen, Pyro not far behind him.

\-----

Baj looked around the kitchen, finishing getting the food set out. Nathan sat at the table, not looking at anything in particular. He had always tended to do that if he’d been grounded, as if he had locked himself in head and was continuously going over what had happened and what he would do in the future. Baj found the intensity kind of…strange, but the boy’s therapist said they were both doing well and that it wasn’t something to be worried about, so he tried to ignore it.

He looked around as he finished putting the plates out. He thought he heard Max and Paul heading for the kitchen, good, good. He’d asked Max to go get Paul for him, thought he might react better, or rather, be less confused/hurt if Baj were to go at dinnertime with no food.  
Sure enough, both Max and Paul entered the room and sat down at the table where they had sat on Saturday.

\-----

Pyro watched as Baj served out all the food to them. He had the feeling that his uncle was planning on telling them something, but he wasn’t sure what it was going to be.

Sure enough, his uncle soon put down his utensils and indicated to them for them to listen to him.

“So. Given the current…problems…I would like to inform all of you that on Wednesday, we are all going to again be eating in here, and all three of you are going to be on your best behavior, do you understand?” Pyro was fairly certain he was being directly glared at with that last part.

“Yes dad.”

“Okay.”

“Yes sir.”

Baj twitched at Pyro calling him sir again, but didn’t say anything about it.

“I am having a guest over, and I will not tolerate any bad behavior. Nathan and Max, yes, it’s who you think it is. Paul, I’ll tell you later.”

Both Millbee and Dinnerbone looked at each other, sharing a hidden conversation, which made Pyro feel very left out.

The rest of the meal went calmly, and soon enough they had all scattered to their own rooms.

\-----

Pyro stared at his homework, waiting. He had figured that his uncle would turn up, probably sooner rather than later, and explain more of what was going on on Wednesday.

Sure enough, Baj entered the room about five minutes later.

“Paul.”

“Yes uncle?”

Baj sighed at him softly.

“Listen up. I had a date prior to this…problem, and now, instead, she will be over here on Wednesday, instead of us going out…”

Pyro winced at that, he fairly clearly didn’t trust him to remain here, even with Millbee and Dinnerbone to watch over him.

“Right. So, her name, at least as much as needed for now, is Ms. Bayou. If she wants you to call her something else, she’ll tell you, obvious enough. You will be on your best behavior, do you understand me? ”

“Yes sir, I do.” In that case, speak only when spoken to, and be as polite as possible. Clean up after everyone, if asked to do something, do it, and so on.

“Mhm. I am sure you are capable of that. As a sign of…trust…I am going to turn the power on in here back on Wednesday morning. If you are good while she is here, then, well, it won’t be turned back off afterwards.”

Oh, Pyro rather wanted that, yes.

“Oh! Yes. I, yes. Thank you.”

“Mhm. Remember, Wednesday. She’ll be here around 4:30, and dinner will start at 5. Best. Behavior.”

“Of course, sir!” Oh yes, definitely. He really wanted the power back on. Well, more the door, but barring that, then the power would certainly be very nice. Now, he only had to survive the next day without power, and be very very good, and he’d get the power to stay on.

Baj nodded at him and gave him one final piercing look before leaving the room.

\-----

Dinnerbone sighed as he stared at the ceiling. Millbee snorted at him, unamused. Millbee found it mildly annoying to talk to someone who wasn’t looking at who was talking, if he was honest.

“It’s Ms. Bayou, Millbee.”

“I am aware of that.”

“We gotta make sure that Pyro and her get along.”

“Feeling altruistic, Dinnerbone?”

“Maybe. More to the point, I believe dad will let up on Pyro somewhat if things go well, and well, I’m pretty sure that that will make Pyro rather happier, and so on.”

“Ah. Makes sense. And if he’s happy, the more he’s likely to explain things, rather than go on lockdown, rather like you, hm?”

Dinnerbone sat up and glared at Millbee before flopping back down.

“Oh, fine, true. But I don’t think he’s the sort to desire to hug people afterwards.”

“Fair enough, but we could be surprised, you never know! Or maybe he’ll discover that your hugs are the awesomeness that they are, and learn to tolerate them, which would be nice.”

Dinnerbone laughed at that, he’d been told before that he was good at hugging people. Which, if he stopped to think about it, veered slightly towards creepy, but he was careful about that, so never mind.

“Aww, true. It’s late, Millbee…”

“Haha, okay. Sleep well.”

\-----

Baj sighed softly as he sat watching his personal television. He really hoped that Paul would be good. He thought he would be…hm. Maybe get Max or Nathan to go talk to him? But hell, he must have had visitors before, if not of this specific sort, he’ll probably be fine. Particularly with the reward of keeping the power on in it for him.

\-----

Pyro grinned to himself, contemplating what exactly he needed to do for the best possible outcome. Optimally, he’d grab either Millbee or Dinnerbone for confirmation, as they had met this lady before, it seemed.

He was fairly certain he still had that second-best outfit with him, and had more than enough work clothes, as well. On that, of course, well…he was here all day, it was a sure bet that he’d be cleaning the whole house (other than the private bedrooms, of course!) on Wednesday, in preparation of her visit. He wondered briefly if this meant he would get to see a more English type of courting, on his uncle’s part. His parents were never really the type for that, and he had never really gotten to see much…he’d known of, of course, going to a céilidh1 and the eventual use of knotwork rings…but he suspected that was less common outside of the island. He knew it was common enough in the south, as well, though, so…probably more an Irish thing, hence his curiosity of the English custom.

“Aha, too much thinking, not enough sleep. I can think about this with the morning!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes and Translations!
> 
> 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A9ilidh Gaelic social type gathering. Think song and dance sort of affair. It would be similar to meeting one’s spouse at church, I suppose.


	17. Chapter Thirteen

Pyro hummed to himself as he got started on his homework. He was fairly certain he’d be done with the stuff from Millbee’s and Dinnerbone’s school by lunchtime, which was nice. He figured that at that point, rather, after lunch, he’d get started on cleaning the house, since he didn’t have much other work to do right now. Well, he _did_ but he actually needed to have some more school lessons before doing them!

He was quite happy and was humming the more upbeat rebel songs to himself as he worked. He tended to sing quite often, and when he didn’t hum or sing at all was when he was sad or scared. He’d been trying to relax for a while now, and it seemed to be working. He wondered if Baj thought the songs were strange, but no matter. He only sung them cause he liked to sing, the topics they were on were wide-ranging and had much less to do with his mood than him singing by itself.

\-----

He sighed at his computer softly. Paul hadn’t really said anything when he’d brought him breakfast, maybe he’d talk more at lunch? Baj wasn’t certain, but he did hope he would. Well, he’d need to anyway; he needed the help getting the place cleaned up for tomorrow, after all.

And since Paul was here, well…that and it would help bleed off his energy, he’d heard him alternate between homework and pacing for a while now since breakfast.

Yeah, he thought that made the most sense. There wasn’t a huge amount of work to be done around the house, but still. It was better than nothing, and might help keep Paul calm and give him something to do that wasn’t schoolwork. And to be fair, even _he_ remembered just how boring schoolwork could get.

He shrugged to himself and got up to go make them lunch.

\-----

Shree watched as Dinnerbone and Millbee filtered into the lunch around along with the rest of their class. He’d wanted to talk to them after yesterday’s…interesting…mention of their cousin and what had happened. He had been concerned for them, but Millbee had messaged him after school and had said things were going okay, but still.

He had noticed they were sitting at a table by themselves, so he made his way over to them and sat down.

“Hello Millbee, Dinnerbone.”

“Oh, hey Shree. How you doing?”

“Pretty good.”

He watched them for a few moments, contemplating what he wanted to say.

“So. What’s going on with your cousin, then?”

Dinnerbone chewed on his lips thoughtfully.

“Well, he’s certainly upset to be here…but he also seems terrified to be here, so that’s a bad combo right off.”

Millbee chimed in, “He hates being here, he’s from the province. But he knows that our dad is a good guy, and I think those two thoughts are conflicting, somehow. I’m not certain why.” He shrugged slightly at that.

Shree blinked at that. He could think of a few reasons right off as to why that would be a problem. But then again, Millbee was never the introspective one, that was Dinnerbone.

“So, what are you doing about it?”

“Currently hoping that by encouraging everyone involved to talk, which includes us. We hope it will help.”

He would have said more, but they were then approached by two of the other students. Dinnerbone recognized them as the two kids whose parents were from the Republic of Ireland. They however were born here, if he remembered correctly. He wondered if they wanted to talk to them about their cousin. After they’d left school on Friday, word had gotten around fast as to why they had left early.

“Uh, Millbee?”

“Hm, what?”

“Could you give this to your cousin?” said the older one as he handed an envelope to him. It was labeled as To: Millbee and Dinnerbone’s Cousin

“Uh…sure…what is it?”

They both looked at him slightly nervous.

“We wanted to let your cousin know what the teachers here were like and who is…um…who is…”

“Who’s gonna be well, bastards…about him being from…you know…” said the younger one, being very quiet. Both of them looked very nervous and kept looking around to make sure there were no teachers nearby.

“Oh, um, thanks. I’ll make sure he gets it.”

“Thanks!” they both said as they hurried off to their own table.

Shree blinked. He would have said something about this letter; however, it was almost time for his next class.

“Um…well, talk to you later, lunch is almost over now.”

“Talk to you later, Shree.”

\-----

Pyro bounced around, getting the house cleaned up. He was currently vacuuming everything he could possibly vacuum. It was a nice vacuum, he thought, one of those ones that can go between hardwood and carpet without having to hit any buttons.

Baj had shown him where all the cleaning supplies where, and told him what he shouldn’t clean, which was mostly anything in the cabinets with doors on them. Everything else needed to be dusted and cleaned, as far as Pyro could tell. He was humming to himself as he went around getting the place cleaned up.

After not too long, Millbee and Dinnerbone arrived back home, making one heck of a racket as they entered the house.

“Hey, I’ve got something for you I’ll put it on your desk.”

“Okay, thanks!” He said as he kept cleaning.

They both looked at each other for a moment before wandering off.

\-----

Dinner had been uneventful. Baj had given him his food and reminded him about what was happening tomorrow, but that was it. He was now working on the last of his work and contemplating the letter that he’d put in a drawer once he’d gotten back to the room. For some reason, he didn’t really want to explain letters from people to his uncle, particularly when he didn’t yet know the people.

He shrugged before pulling the letter out of the drawer.

It was labeled as To: Millbee and Dinnerbone’s Cousin, which he found mildly amusing. He figured that his name either hadn’t been mentioned or the writer wasn’t certain they’d heard it correctly.

_Hello there!_

_My brother and I, we wanted to let you know something._

_**Wait, first, I’m Tadhg or Timothy, and my brother here is Lasairian but called Larry.** _

_Right, right. Call us Tim and Larry, okay? You’ll want to use your English name as well. Most of the teachers are fine, but there are few that…aren’t._

_**Right! Like Mr. Brown, the history teacher for your year. I think I’ll actually be in your class, since we’re the same age. That and I might have made friends with the secretaries. So, in his case, don’t talk much, don’t volunteer anything, and ignore everything he says about the islands we are on, pretty much!** _

_He’s not that bad! **Yes he is!** Whatever. So, yeah. He’s the worse. But mind you, he freaking served over there, so…yeah. Which does explains some things. Also explains why you try to not talk to him! He’ll be…professional…but still._

_**Also, there’s Ms. Taylor, who teaches math, who’s nicer than him, but still. And I don’t think you’ll have her this year, anyway.** _

_Yeah. I think those are the only two you really need to worry about. Besides, I’m sure Millbee can deliver letters, he knows who we are!_

_**See you next week!** See you!_

_Tadhg **Lasairian**_

Pyro slowly shook his head at the letter before putting it back in the drawer. Welp. That’s…interesting. He wasn’t too certain of what to do with that information. Actually, no, he did at least know one thing. He would write a quick reply, thanking them.

On the outside he wrote To: Tim and Larry

On the inside went

_Hello Tadhg and Lasairian!_

__

__

_Thanks for the heads up, I appreciate it. I’m glad Millbee got this to me before I start classes next week; I think it will help me._

_From,_

_Pádraig/Paul_

That would do. He saw Millbee getting ready to head upstairs so he flagged him down.

“Hey, could you give this to the people who sent me the letter, please?”

“Wha…oh! Tim and Larry. Yeah, sure, I’ll give them it tomorrow.”

“Thanks!”


	18. Chapter Fourteen

He was nervous. Very very nervous, in fact. Almost as nervous as he’d been when he first flew here. It was seven in the morning, and in about…nine and a half hours, his uncle’s girlfriend, significant other, whatever she was to be called, was coming over. And if he was good, he’d get to keep the electric on, but if not? No, banish that thought! Dinnerbone and Millbee had both spoken to him when they could, about this Ms. Bayou, but, he was still nervous. He wanted to make a good impression, but…he had no idea how to go about that!  
  
The best idea, he thought, was to only speak when spoken to, make dang sure everything was clean and in order, and be completely polite regardless of anything she may say or do. That should do it, right?  
  
At least, he thought his plan would at least keep things from getting worse.  
  
\-----  
  
She was concerned. Everything was planned out, this she knew. She’d been there before, of course, and…but…after the decision to come over today instead of going out somewhere, there was just something that made her nervous. Now Baj, he didn’t make her nervous. Well… _that_ fluttering wasn’t _nervousness_ , not exactly.  
  
And she got along with his children, and they with her, so it wasn’t that.   
  
That left, she knew with a sigh, his nephew. Who was late of Northern Ireland, and who seems to have gotten into some kind of fight or blow up with Baj. Which lead them back to having dinner at the house instead of out. She wondered about that, as well. Dinnerbone and Millbee should certainly be able to watch him, but no. Or maybe Millbee and Dinnerbone were also involved? She knew Dinnerbone had gotten himself a grounding at the same time as the nephew did, was that linked?  
  
When he’d called her…she had known something was wrong as soon as he’d spoke. He sounded extremely unhappy and as if he was coming down from high anger. None of it was directed at her, and it still made her extremely uncomfortable. The thing was, you see, that it was directed at his nephew, and she supposed, _that_ was part of what made her so nervous. She didn’t know what he had or had not done to make Baj so angry, but still.   
  
She sighed. Both Millbee and Dinnerbone had contacted her, saying it would be nice to see her. They talked, occasionally, given how their father was dating her, it made sense. Dinnerbone’s message, however…he talked about his cousin, and how he, his cousin, was hoping that tonight went well, and how Dinnerbone was certain, just certain, that Ms. Bayou and Paul (whose nickname was Pyro?) That they would get along and everything would go very well. And that was strange, wasn’t it? She wondered what sort of threat he was given if he was so desperate to have things go well, she doubted he just wanted to meet his uncle’s girlfriend, given that he had only just met his uncle this last week!  
  
She knew a bit about this Paul, she and Baj had talked yesterday, and he seemed much calmer and more…upbeat…about the entire situation. She knew he was from Belfast, and that Baj’s brother was his father. She knew that he’d be going to school with Millbee and Dinnerbone starting on Monday. What she didn’t know is how he’d react to things, what with the blowing up at Baj, nor what would happen at dinner with him.   
  
And all of this together caused her to be fairly concerned about things.  
  
\-----  
  
Baj sighed as he watched the three boys going around making sure everything was cleaned up.  
  
Now, Paul _had_ done that yesterday, but still. He wanted the place to look good.   
  
When it got to be about three in the afternoon, Paul finished what he was doing to come over to Baj.  
  
“Ah…uncle?”  
  
He blinked at Paul, wondering what he wanted.  
  
“What, Paul?”  
  
“What, um…what do you want me to wear?”  
  
“Uh…just something clean and nice. When it gets to four pm, go get cleaned up.”  
  
“Yes sir.”  
  
Before Baj could tell him to stop calling him sir, he’d gone back to cleaning the house up. Baj sighed softly.  
  
\-----  
  
Pyro sighed as he stared at the wall of the shower. He’d set out his clothes before he’d gone in to take his shower, he hoped that they would think he looked okay. It was his second best set of clothes, which he’d brought in case his Sunday clothes got messed up somehow, he hoped they’d be okay. He preferred to keep the Sunday clothes for Sunday, but if his uncle wanted him to change...he didn’t think he would, though.  
  
He wondered what Baj had told Ms. Bayou about him and what had happened. He really hoped she wouldn’t ask too many questions about things, to be honest.  
  
Shrugging, he finished up his show and dried off before getting dressed. It was almost four now, he noticed. He knew he shouldn’t take such long showers, but they felt nice. Also, he didn’t think there was any water rationing here, so he should be fine.  
  
\-----  
  
Blue sat in the living room as Baj worked on dinner. Both Millbee and Dinnerbone had come in to say hello and had then went to help Baj with the food. She hadn’t seen the nephew yet, come to think of it.  
  
Dinnerbone popped back into the room quite suddenly.  
  
“Ms. Bayou, do you mind if I put Paul in here until dinner?”  
  
“Paul…oh, your cousin? Sure, sure, that’s fine.”  
  
“Okay, thanks!”  
  
With that, he bounced back out again and she just shook her head in amusement as he left.  
  
\-----  
  
Pyro blinked when Dinnerbone came into his room.  
  
“Hello, Dinnerbone.”  
  
“Heya, Pyro. Come with me, to the living room. Dad wants you to stay there until the foods done.”  
  
“Um…okay then…”  
  
He followed Dinnerbone into the living room where he saw a lady sitting on a couch. Ah. This must be Ms. Bayou, he though.  
  
At that, Dinnerbone said “Ms. Bayou? This is Paul. Paul, Ms. Bayou.”  
  
“Um, hello ma’am.”  
  
She turned and blinked at him slowly.  
  
“Please call me Ms. Bayou, Paul.”  
  
He nodded at her slowly before saying, “I’m sorry, Ms. Bayou.”  
  
At this point Dinnerbone just grimaced and left back for the kitchen.  
  
Pyro shrugged slightly as Dinnerbone left and went and sat down on one of the chairs.  
  
\-----  
  
Pyro looked around the living room, mildly uncomfortable. Ms. Bayou had been watching him since he was brought in, but she hadn’t said anything yet.  
  
“So, Paul, where are you from?”  
  
“Oh, um…I was born in Derry, but I’m from Belfast.”  
  
“Ah. I’m from Philadelphia1 originally, but I moved to Manchester about 10 years ago now.”  
  
He briefly wondered why everyone he met lately seemed to be from Manchester. That seemed unfortunate, what with it being well known for having been attacked before, and whatnot.  
  
“Oh. That’s…nice.”  
  
She nodded at him, seeming to be amused. Or possibly like she was running out of conversation topics, Pyro wasn’t sure which, to be honest.  
  
“So, um…how do you like it here?”  
  
He had no idea how to answer that question. He stared blankly at Ms. Bayou for several moments, formulating an answer.  
  
“Uh…it’s um….it’s…pretty?” Well, it wasn’t a lie. His home was prettier, but this place didn’t look too bad.  
  
She blinked at him again.  
  
“That’s…nice…”  
  
Luckily for both of their faltering conversation skills, Millbee arrived to tell them that dinner was ready in the kitchen.  
  
“Thank you.” They both said simultaneously to him.  
  
\-----  
  
Baj looked around the table at the four other people. Everyone was eating quietly to themselves, not really trying to make much conversation. He’d figured that Paul wasn’t going to talk much, and that was fine, but he was surprised that Max and Nathan hadn’t tried to fill the silence.  
  
“So, um. Why don’t we play some Cluedo2?”  
  
The other four people looked at each other and kind of shrugged.  
  
“That sounds nice Baj, yes.”  
  
He smiled softly at Blue for agreeing to the game and went and grabbed it, bringing it back to the kitchen.  
  
\-----  
  
Pyro watched as everyone started talking more, about work and school and life. Since no-one was talking to him directly, however, he stayed quiet. They weren’t ignoring him, he noted, though. They were watching him, but not asking him anything, which he found slightly odd. He wondered if they were afraid of what he would say if asked anything.  
  
Instead, he mostly contemplated what the others were talking about. This Ms. Bayou certainly seemed like a nice person, and Baj was much happier now that she was here and was talking and…leaning on him.  
  
After some time, Ms. Bayou finally turned to him to ask something.  
  
“So, Paul, how have things been for you?”  
  
Everyone the table stopped at that and turned to see how Pyro was going to answer the question.  
  
“Things, um…things could be better. But it’s okay?”  
  
He wasn’t really certain how to answer that question. What did she want him to say, that he wanted to go home? That was, like, really obvious, so, there wasn’t any need for that!  
  
“What do you mean by that?”  
  
A Dhia, cad is féidir liom a rá?3  
  
“Ummmm, we seem to disagree on certain things? But are working them out? I think?”  
  
She blinked at him for several moments before turning to Baj.  
  
“Why don’t we go watch the news?”  
  
“That sounds…nice…boys, why don’t you go play with your computers before going to bed?”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
“Sure.”  
  
“Yes, uncle.”  
  
Baj winced slightly at the last comment as they all left the room, before getting up with Blue and heading into the living room.  
  
\-----  
  
“So, what exactly…?”  
  
“It started as a disagreement on how one should act here, and then he decided that walking to church without telling anyone was a good idea…it’s kind of gone from there, Blue.”  
  
“I suppose that explains why the guest bedroom has no door on it?”  
  
“Yeah. Wanted to make sure he was actually in there, you know?”  
  
“I guess.”  
  
She shrugged at him slightly before continuing.  
  
“I’ll just repeat what I said when we talked on the phone. All four of you need to talk more than you do. And not about anything in particular, just anything. Get to talking, things flow, it helps. Really it does, Baj.”  
  
“I know, I know. It’s just…difficult. Hell, I don’t even really know how to relate to him, everything’s so…different.”  
  
“Bull. He plays the same games as you and the boys, he watches the news, he sings, you said. Talk about those things!”  
  
Baj sighed softly at this.  
  
“I suppose you’re right.”  
  
“I **know** I’m right!”  
  
Baj laughed softly.  
  
“Of course, of course.”  
  
He snickered softly before reaching over and tickling Blue.  
  
“Less talking, more fun! It’s been too long!”  
  
“Hehehehehe!”  
  
\-----  
  
Baj yawned as he got ready for bed. Being with Blue always made him happier, and things had gone pretty darn well, he thought. Definitely well enough for Paul to get to keep his electric on, indeed. He’d tell him that in the morning though, he was far too tired now for that.  
  
\-----  
  
Pyro pondered the light switch for several minutes, debating on if he should turn it off or not.  
  
He finally gave in and turned it off before going to lie down.  
  
Murmuring to himself he said, “Don’t know if it’ll be on in the morning, but I can hope, right? I don’t think it went…that…badly, right?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes!
> 
> 1 She’s from Philly cause hell, I gotta have her from somewhere, and her twitter says she’s in the states…
> 
> 2 Known as Clue here in the states.
> 
> 3 "Oh God, what do I say?"


	19. Interlude, Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which none of the Mindcrackers are present, but are talked about by two other people, instead.

Lasairfhíona yawned softly as she stared at the ceiling of the hospital room. It was an incredibly boring hospital room, she noted with some displeasure. It was all shades of off-white with grey and white floor tiles. The only thing of any interest to her was the crucifix1, but even that got very boring to look at, particularly now that they had given her the rosary2 back. What she really wanted was to be out of this place and back home with her son, but that didn’t seem to be happening any time soon.  
  
They’d told her last week that she’d be moved to rehab this week, but this week they told her next week, and damn, this was frustrating.  
  
Even still, she knew she’d be in rehab for a good while, having been in the hospital for so long, she’d need to regain the motor skills she lost while stuck in this hideous bed. It was a really ugly bed, even for hospital beds. She sometimes swore that the hospitals got their beds from the same people who supplied the hospital wings in the prisons, they were that awful.  
  
She’d heard, via Tom that Pyro and Baj had gotten into some kind of blow up and now he was grounded, among other things. She hated getting information through the grapevine this way, it was hard to know how distorted it got, and she had gotten the feeling that everyone involved was trying to keep her from worrying, which just annoyed her farther. He was her only child; she had a right to be worried about him!  
  
And of course, he was, in all likelihood, going to be the only child she ever had. This thought always made her sigh to herself. She’d never really intended to get pregnant, much less in the manner it occurred, but she had been okay with raising a child once it happened, she just had kind of figured that, well…she’d have more children once that happened. But no. Now, she wasn’t really _trying_ for another child, but…still. There was that…minor suspicion…that Tom was being very careful with that…he knew her…cycle…very well, and she noted they only…lay together…at the times when she was least fertile, not that she was particularly so anyways, she’d been seen by a doctor when she was younger, and had learned she had PCOS3, and was fairly infertile. She was starting to wonder if that was interacting with the tuberculosis and pneumonia, and causing her to be stuck here longer than one normally would. Obviously not _entirely_ infertile, given Pyro’s existence, but still. It made her sad sometimes, to think about it, so she generally avoided doing so. The thought that Tom would go out of his way to avoid…but…given how they got married in the first place, she thought then, she might know why he would do that, actually.   
  
She sighed again, shifting around trying to get comfortable.  
  
Thinking about that, how Pyro came to be and how she ended up married to an English army man was…strange, to say the least. She always wondered just how…dense…he was, sometimes. She knew, **knew** , that there was far more than enough propaganda and training for them, those military men, to stay the hell away from the locals, much less sleep with them, cause you can never tell who’s loyalist and who’s nationalist until it’s too late…and yet, there he was and there she was. Of course, she hadn’t expected to become pregnant, anyway. She’d been on birth control, for the PCOS, please, and yet…she’d gotten Pyro tested, even though Tom was the only option, and he was Tom’s. Sometimes she wished she’d slept with one of her comrades, instead…still, sacrifices for information must be made, and it resulted in her child, something she knew could happen, even with birth control…mind, she’d been just coming off antibiotics at the time, so…that very could have…best not to dwell on what could have been.  
  
She groaned softly at the thought. Tom had confided to her once, that his colleagues often claimed that he should leave them, at once. When she asked why specifically they said that, he said that they were all of the opinion that Pyro, having been raised by her, would eventually…she loathed to think about it…but they claimed that Pyro would, by necessity of being an Irish Nationalist (and she didn’t even know if he identified that way!), that he would…eventually, sooner rather than later, kill his own father, since he was British military. She was, rather, of the opinion that this very fact, that his father was British military, would be what would keep him from taking up arms against them. She suspected that he’d rather protest and use the ballot box and signs, simply to avoid that possible problem.  
  
She wondered how much her parents had taught Pyro, sometimes. Had they taught him to use guns, to make bombs? She didn’t think so, but still…she thought that her father might have taught him at least _basic_ gun safety, he was quite adept with them…then again, he had pulled an AR-154 on Tom when he had found out that Tom had…impregnated…her. She’d been **horrified** at that, he was damn lucky that Tom was unarmed at the time, or who knows what would have happened then? And what did people say? That they had a shotgun wedding? Yes, indeed, they had, quite literally so. She wouldn’t be surprised to learn her father had taught Pyro to use guns, but she really hoped not. She wanted him to remain a child for as long as he could.   
  
Children, children…she often thought there _were_ no children in warzones…she wondered how her own son was getting along with Baj’s children…they’d be…normal, wouldn’t they? Oh, what was even normal, anymore? She wasn’t…normal…and Pyro she was sure, wasn’t either. Normal childhoods don’t involve your mother being interned, nor does it involve 12 year old children being held at a police station until their father is permitted to get them…that had scared her far more than being interned then, to be honest. She was so scared they were going to intern him as well at the time, barely 12, and that…that was terrifying. They’d held him at the station for a week before Tom had been contacted and permitted to come get him released…he refused to talk about what happened then, she wished they could find him a therapist, but they’d had no luck thus far. What she _had_ found interesting was that apparently he hadn’t spoken to Tom either about what happened nor had he spoken much at all while she waited out that internment, four months, and he had barely spoken to anyone else, either. She wondered if he’d spoken to anyone at all about it, honestly…which is why she so wanted to find a therapist.  
  
She worried about how he was doing with his cousins…did he talk to them? She knew that if you pressed for an answer, you’d get one, but then he’d just sometimes…shut down…if he found the questions painful, etc. However, if you just let him be comfortable, he’d talk more, which made her happier. The last time she had talked with him, it had been about what would happen if he had to go stay with Baj, and what do to if things went badly there, which she hoped he’d never need to use, of course.   
  
This thought made her sigh again, upset.   
  
She knew why Tom had been reassigned, his command didn’t really like keeping people here for so long…’the province warps people’ they said, indeed. She sometimes wondered if it was, in fact, warping him. Or was that because he was married to an Irish nationalist and had a son by her? That might warp a person just as fast as anything else, after all. She hoped they’d send him back, regardless. She understood that his command still held out hope that, if nothing else, he could ‘hold on’ to Pyro, to keep him out of…troubles...as it were. And well, he kind of needed to be back here if he was going to do that, after all.   
  
He was stuck between them, and that…this made her feel the worst. She’d caused someone to get trapped between the sides, and that was just…even when Pyro made his choices, she wasn’t sure he’d ever be completely accepted anywhere. She wondered sometimes if that was in any part one of the reasons why Tom’s command tried so hard to keep them away from the locals…if nothing else, to keep them from being trapped and from making people who were trapped. Not a major reason, but she thought at least someone must have thought it. But really, her son was already here, he had the need to have a father, and surely they must prefer him to have an English father rather than having one of her very nationalist brothers from stepping up to be a father figure in his place…  
  
\-----  
  
He paced the halls of the barracks where he was stationed, annoyed. He did not want to be here, at all. Canada may be nice, but it was neither his home of England, nor was it where his wife and child were in Northern Ireland, and this frustrated him greatly.  
  
All he could do was wait and pace the halls when he had downtime, waiting to hear back from his command on their decision. His lieutenant swore he’d have his answer by Friday, but he was still anxious. And even then…if (no, say when rather!) it was yes, it’d be a month before he’d actually land back in Northern Ireland and be processed through and could get Pyro back home. And if it was no…then he was stuck here for the rest of the deployment, six months in total. He’d been re-deployed before, six months at a time, but Lasairfhíona hadn’t been ill those times, and had watched Pyro on her own.   
  
And god, that was the thing, wasn’t it? If he could only take Pyro with him, but no, of course not. Couldn’t have him on base with him, god damn it. It would solve the problems…but he sighed. It was his own fault that Pyro couldn’t stay on base with him, after all.   
  
He sighed as he thought back to that night. He still wasn’t entirely certain as to _why_ he had decided to sleep with her, he hadn’t been drunk at the time, he’d only had a single drink…and hell, they’d even just had a presentation _that day_ about what not to do when you’re on leave, but still he did. And even then, sleeping with her was one thing, but talking and the conversation…it wasn’t until he was being debriefed the next day that he had even started to realize why he shouldn’t have spoken…and by then it was far too late. Even now though, he still wasn’t certain why he’d lost almost all of his clearance, rather than be put on probation, and why, when it was learned she was pregnant with his child, why they, before the kid was even born, prohibited him from being on any bases with him. It just seemed kind of…stupid…to him, honestly. Why not have him permitted on base? Surely it would only help show Pyro that they were decent people, right?  
  
She’d sent him a letter, two weeks after that night. On the surface, it was just that the night had been nice, and wishing him well. She’d used…lemon juice, he thought…and when you put heat to it, it returned. Said that they should talk, gave a meeting place and time, and said she’d been to a doctor. He’d been pissed, since he knew he was clean and she had claimed to be clean as well, but when he went (without telling anyone what he was doing, if they couldn’t figure out that message, then screw them) she’d been scared, but not…not like that. She was there alone, which also surprised him at the time. He had a very uneasy feeling that it wasn’t an illness, but lateness, instead, and that she was trying to be…discreet…about it, for his own sake as well as hers. She’d shown him the test, offered to do one where he could see her, he agreed to that, and…well, now they had Pyro.   
  
Why’d they take it out on the kid, though? Did they think it was…in the blood, or something? Sure, his, ah, father-in-law had…pulled a gun on him and demanded he do the ‘proper’ thing and marry Lasairfhíona but still. It simply set up the poor kid for problems. Hn. That…there were a lot of things that happened there that just seemed like you were _trying_ to screw with the people… **argh**! If his lieutenant heard him say that, he’d be accused of dissention and being ‘warped’ by the province, and they’d be sure to keep him the full six months here then, damn it. Maybe he _was_ warped, hell. It was hard to know now, it had been so long…and he wanted what was best for his son, and for his wife, and well, what she wanted was, well…that was something considered ‘warped’, wasn’t it now? He groaned. Was this thing, this idea, was this why they were so…indoctrinated…against them, the locals? Because they might become…sympathetic to them? And if that was so…but down that path lay dissention among other…problems. There was no war there, so it couldn’t be…treason…but he suspected that it would still surely be treasonous to say such things.  
  
He had too much time on his hands, he thought. Most of his time was spent working or with Lasairfhíona and Pyro, he had rarely been alone. Now he was, though. He was mostly left to himself while the decision was made, and all he could do was use the phone to talk to his brother and son as well as his wife. Even then, his wife couldn’t talk for long yet, and Baj…well. He thought that Baj must be still getting things evened out with Pyro, from how he sounded.  
  
\-----  
Separated as they were, they both wished that this day, Wednesday could finish quickly so they could get to Friday and its answers for them faster. One wanting to be moved to rehab and one wanting the answer to being reassigned, but both simply wanting answers to their questions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes-
> 
> 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucifix
> 
> 2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosary
> 
> 3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycystic_ovary_syndrome
> 
> 4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AR-15


	20. Chapter Fifteen

Pyro yawned as he got ready for bed. The day had gone well, Baj had been happy enough with how he had acted yesterday to let him keep the power on, and he’d gotten a chance to message some of his friends again. He wasn’t looking forward to school if it meant he had to have a class with someone who would be prejudiced against him, but some things you just have to suck up and deal with, he thought.  
  
He wondered briefly when his father would be told if he’d be sent back home or not, but he just shrugged, thinking that it would happen when it happened, and went to sleep.  
  
\-----  
  
Today was Friday. Today was Friday and his damnable lieutenant said he’d get his answer today.  
  
“Corporal Smith, you are going to wear a hole in the floor if you keep that up.” His lieutenant said as he appeared from around one of what seemed like an endless supply of corners this place had. He thought the barracks back home were bad; this place was a veritable maze. And not like that prison1, but a real one. And when had he started to think of the province as home, he wondered? He shook his head slightly to clear it before answering.  
  
“Yes Sir! I…” What had they decided? That had to be why he was here, right? He really hoped that was why his lieutenant was here.   
  
“At ease, Corporal.”  
  
“Yes Lieutenant Williams.”  
  
“We’ve got your answer for you, Smith."  
  
\-----  
  
Lasairfhíona grinned to herself. They’d finally moved her into rehab, and said she was making good progress. Of course, the fact that she’d been interrupted several times by the police with questions on her family had nothing to do with her being moved into the rehab facility where no-one but the staff was permitted, of course not. And certainly nothing to do with the fact that the staff here really hated having the police show up, and wanted their patients to have rest and not be bothered…which had nothing to do with why she had chosen this hospital in the first place, oh no that would just be silly!  
  
 _ring ring ring!_  
  
She stared at the phone for a moment. She knew that you didn’t need the room number to call her, just her full name, but still, she wasn’t really expecting to be called right now. Maybe it was her husband? That would be a nice thing, yes.   
  
“Hello, this is Lasairfhíona…”  
  
“Hello love. I’ve gotten the answer about being redeployed.”  
  
“Oh! What is it?”  
  
\-----  
  
Baj yawned slightly. It was around three in the afternoon now, and he was trying to stay awake with some coffee. Things were finally looking up; Paul seemed to be settling down nicely, even. Wasn’t sure how long past Monday that would last, but he’d take it for now, certainly.  
  
 _ring ring ring!_   
  
He blinked at his phone, mildly confused as to why someone from Canada seemed to be trying to call him. Did he know anyone from Canada? He didn’t think so, but a faint thought was tickling at the back of his head, said to answer the call.  
  
“Hello?”  
  
“Hey, Baj? It’s me, Tom. I’m using the barracks phones.”  
  
Oh! That would do it, yeah. He _was_ in Canada, wasn’t he.  
  
“Oh, hey Tom. What’s happening?”  
  
“IhavegottentheresponsebackandIambeingsentbacktotheprovincerightawayIamsohappy.”  
  
“Um, slow down there a bit?”  
  
“I have gotten the response back and I am being sent back to the province right away, I am so happy.”  
  
“Oh! That’s great news!”  
  
That was awesome news, he was pretty sure Paul would be thrilled, and it might help to keep Paul grounded if he knew just how short of a time he’d have to suffer through school here, ha.   
  
“Yeah! It’ll be a month or so before I’m all finished being processed, but I’ll keep you updated and let you know right away when Paul can come home!”  
  
“Great! I’ll go let him know, you stay safe!”  
  
\-----  
  
Pyro paced around his room, having finished his homework for the day and not having anything to do right away.  
  
Perhaps it would be a good idea to get out his mp3 player; he’d been having it charge once the power was turned back on, and so it should be fully charged currently.  
  
Before he could do that, however, was when Baj rather suddenly appeared in the doorway of the room.  
  
“AAAaaaaa oh hello uncle.”  
  
Baj appeared startled at his mild yelping and just sighed at him again. He wondered how often he sighed and if it was possibly to out-sigh oneself eventually. He wasn’t certain he wanted to find out what happened when Baj ran out of sighs, actually.  
  
“I’ve just gotten off the phone with your father.”  
  
News? News! Must be news!  
  
“News?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“What is the news, please?” He was practically vibrating and bouncing up and down slightly right now, and was clapping his fingertips together softly at a very rapid pace.   
  
News, news, news!  
  
Baj stared at him for a long moment. Less staring, more news!  
  
“He’s being reassigned to the province; it will be about a month. Which is good, less than the six months of deployment, instead.”  
  
Home! Home sooner than when mum would get out of the hospital, yes. Or was she in rehab already at this point? He hoped so; maybe she’d get out the same time da would get home?  
  
“He’s being sent home instead of kept?”  
  
“He’s being sent back to the province, yes.”  
  
Pyro was mildly annoyed at that. It wasn’t ‘the province’, it was his home!  
  
“That’s awesome that he’s being sent home! Thank you for telling me!”  
  
“Yup. You can go outside in the backyard for a bit if you want, I think Millbee is out back currently.”  
  
“Thanks! Bye!”  
  
With that, Pyro put down the mp3 player he hadn’t gotten a chance to turn on, and ran outside to run around and blow of the energy he rather suddenly had from the excitement of knowing he’d be going home sooner rather than later.  
  
\-----  
  
Millbee blinked as the Pyro shaped human projectile jetted into the backyard and flopped over on the swings before starting to swing rapidly.  
  
“Um, Pyro, you okay there?”  
  
“Imfinethingsaregreatihavegottenawesomenewsiamveryhappy.”  
  
“Uh…what?”  
  
“My da’s being sent home instead of kept on deployment! Or maybe they just re-deployed him to home instead of keeping him? I don’t know, but he’s going home! So I’ll only be here for about another month!”  
  
“OH!”  
  
Well, um damn. What do you say to that? Was he supposed to be happy? He knew it was a good thing, but was happy right? He didn’t want to seem happy that Pyro would be leaving soon, after all.  
  
“I’m, um…glad you get to go home?”  
  
“Yeah! I mean, you all are nice enough and stuff, but I wanna go home. No offensive meant.”  
  
Oh thank god.  
  
“Yeah, yeah! That’s good, yeah.”  
  
Millbee just laughed to himself as Pyro kept alternating between swinging and running around until he finally sat down on the swings and yawns, having finally ran out of the extra energy. And just in time for dinner, thought Millbee.  
  
“Dinnertime!” Yelled Baj from the doorway.  
  
“Coming!” Both of them said at once.  
  
\-----  
  
Dinnerbone blinked as he was called to come down for dinner. Well, he certainly wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to eat in the dining room again.  
  
“Um, okay.”  
  
He hurried downstairs and noticed that all three of them were sitting in there, so it wasn’t just him being called in, it was Pyro as well.  
  
Baj nodded as they served themselves out and as Pyro rapidly said…the lord’s prayer, was it? and waited for them to finish passing things out before speaking.  
  
“Paul will be with us for about a month, my brother has been reassigned back to the province, and he’ll be able to go back there once Tom gets back and processed through.”  
  
Dinnerbone thought that Pyro looked slightly annoyed at that, was it how it was worded? It certainly _seemed_ to be because of the wording. Lots of things seemed to have to do with how things were worded; he wondered if you could tell where someone was from in the province by the words they used. Maybe you could, and they all sounded like they were unionists? Well, that would make sense, right? They were English (and Welsh!) after all.   
  
“I’ll be making sure to get updates from him when I can, and will be letting everyone know how things are progressing.”  
  
They all nodded at him before looking back down at the food.  
  
“Ah, eat, eat.”  
  
With that, all four of them dug into the food, being much happier now than they were this time last week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes, etc
> 
> 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Maze_Prison It had a ton of other names, and I swear, half of them are used as song titles, just to confuse a person on if it’s about the same place or not!


	21. Chapter Sixteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning- Mentions of Violence

Saturday passed uneventfully, of which everyone was thankful for.  
  
\-----  
  
Pyro woke up early Sunday and get dressed and sat in the kitchen eating a small breakfast, waiting for Baj to come in to take him to church as he had said he would, yesterday.  
  
“Hey Paul, you ready for church, then?”  
  
He looked over to the doorway and saw Baj standing there, dressed up nicely in a suit. He looked kind of uncomfortable to be dressed up, but hadn’t Dinnerbone said before that they never really went to church? Probably why getting dressed up on a Sunday was odd to him, then, he thought.  
  
“Yes sir, I am.”  
  
He looked down at himself, checking. Yup, he had his nice clothes on, had washed and dried them yesterday to make sure, and had cleaned his shoes off from where the walking had made them fairly dirty.  
  
\-----  
  
Baj swore to himself softly as he tried to figure out the parking lot here at the Catholic Church. There were long rows, but none of those concrete parking…things…did they even have a name? Those things that were meant to tell you where the parking stall ended, he thought.1  
  
He groaned as he finally managed to get parked, or at least he thought he managed to park somewhat correctly.  
  
He helped Paul get out of the car and started walking him up to the church. Paul looked at him slightly oddly for that, probably cause he’d walked here himself last week and was fine…but damn it, he should probably do a better showing of this unexpected parenting job he suddenly had more of!  
  
He looked over at Paul for a moment and was startled to see him almost…smirking…at him…why…?  
  
“Hello Paul! Is this your uncle, then??”  
  
“Yes, dearie, is this your uncle??”  
  
Oh. OH god. Little old ladies. Of the most nosey sort! Paul must have run into them last week…and all the questions he was getting bombarded with! That must have been why he was smirking at him! Oi!  
  
“I…Yes, I’m his uncle…”  
  
“Well, then! How are his parents doing?”  
  
“Um….better?”  
  
“Good, good.”  
  
One of the little old ladies looked at him contemplatively for a long moment.  
  
“It’s so nice you’ve decided to stay for service, you know.”  
  
What?  
  
“What?”  
  
“Well, I mean, you can’t get your car out now, you seem to have gotten blocked anyways…so…it’s nice of you to stay.”  
  
He slowly looked over at the parking lot. She was correct, he was blocked in.  
  
“Ah, well….no. I’ll just…stay with the car…”  
  
Paul grinned at him slightly before heading into the church, leaving him to fend for himself with the old ladies.  
  
One of them seemed to take the opportunity to turn on him and start, well, questioning him. The others went off, probably to claim seat space.  
  
“So, you’re going to be driving him from now on, right?”  
  
“I, um, yes. Last week was…unusual.”  
  
“I hope that’s been…fixed..., church is rather important, you know.”  
  
“Yes ma’am. We have an agreement on how this works now.” Nosey biddy, he thought, perhaps too unkindly.  
  
“Good! I’ll be watching over him, I’ll let you know!”  
  
“Right. Okay. I’ll be waiting now…”  
  
“See you next week! Maybe you’ll join us then!”  
  
Baj winced slightly as he headed back to the car. Damn it, he didn’t need any nosy little old ladies taking it to heart to intrude into things they shouldn’t be interfering with! And he was certainly _not_ going to be going into the church, not next week and not ever, thank you very much.  
  
\-----  
  
The rest of Sunday passed well, once they managed to get back out of the parking lot, which proved to be trickier than he thought. Perhaps he’d park on the other street next time. That might work better.   
  
\----  
  
Pyro yawned as he got ready for bed on Monday night. Tuesday looked like it was going to be…interesting. Today had been…okay, he supposed. His last class was history, the one with the…strange…teacher and he was glad it was last, and then he could escape after it. Timothy2, was it? Tadhg, the one who wrote him the letter, he was right, he had classes with him. He was also correct; the teacher was…really something else.  
  
But in any case, tomorrow. Tomorrow…apparently, Mr. Brown, the history teacher, he meant, of course, was having a speaker in, to talk to them about the history of his homeland. And that was a bitch, wasn’t it? He was almost entirely certain, from how the teacher looked at him, that the speaker was going to be active duty army, probably just rotated here from his home. He hated that. The entire idea was making him remember things he wanted to forget.  
  
Seeing them, the military, and of course, of the protests he’d been to. And the last bad one, where he’d been injured, among other more painful things that had happened. He wondered if this soldier would talk about any of those things, or if he’d been injured there, and that’s why he was here in England. He thought that seemed a good possibility, particularly since Mr. Brown had told them (or retold the others, rather) that they were to be polite to him, despite how they’d want to react to him. To Pyro, the only reason he could think of for that was that this soldier must have been injured, at that just…that upset him, and reminded him of things, all at the same time.  
  
\-----  
  
Pyro yawned as he got ready for his last class on Tuesday.  
  
He was right, he _knew_ it. He saw the man walking to the school in the morning, in his uniform. And he _was_ right again, he’d been injured. Looked…he looked…he looked like he’d been burned…he twitched, trying to drive the memories away, bad thoughts, bad memories, he didn’t want to think about that, that protest, that soldier, that _fire_ , not now.  
  
Wincing, he went back to his locker, and grabbed his books. He saw the soldier briefly, during lunch. Made some sense, he had to eat at some point, and it was probably when Mr. Brown had his prep period, so no classes to….talk…to. Or to twist and teach and give propaganda to, he though meanly. He had felt…dizzy, at that, when he saw him. He looked so much like that soldier, the one he was trying to forget. The probability that it _was_ the same one…well, to be fair, it was a decent probability actually, he though, thinking on it. The injuries weren’t…as common as some people would claim…and they weren’t…new, but no more than a year old, he though…which was in the right time frame. He hoped it wasn’t, wasn’t the same person. Wasn’t sure he could handle that, what he might say, if it was the same person.  
  
\-----  
  
Pyro shivered, listening to the speaker. He was a Sergeant, the same rank as his da, actually. He told them to call him BTC3, though he didn’t say what it stood for. Some sort of call-sign, probably. Said he didn’t want to use his name when he was sort of…on duty but also not on duty. Pyro thought that made sense, from various talks with his dad.   
  
He was born in America to English parents, and apparently, when things started to go…badly…more badly? In his homeland, the soldier’s parents moved them to England; to…he didn’t know, to support England? Maybe? Was that what he said? He wasn’t sure, paying attention and not listening to the memories was difficult. But yes, the soldier had, when he was old enough, joined the army. Drove the damnable armoured cars and tanks4 that ran roughshod over his homeland. He’d been talking about ‘the province’ and stuff, and was, at least, decently neutral, which surprised Pyro.   
  
Shaking himself he realized he was almost done speaking for a moment.  
  
“So, anyone have any questions?”  
  
Several classmates started waving their arms around wildly.  
  
“Yes, you?”  
  
“Was it over there that you got injured?”  
  
The soldier looked at the young man with a mildly pained expression before looking at Mr. Brown.  
  
“You mind?”  
  
“No, if they ask, answer…they shouldn’t ask if they don’t want answers.”  
  
Well, that was…ominous, wasn’t it?  
  
He looked around for a moment, looking at Pyro for a moment longer than he would have liked. He felt the memories pushing forward again, and ruthlessly shoved them back down. Not now, damn it, he could fall apart later. He failed to notice that the soldier had a remarkable similar look on his own face, too busy with his own pain as he was.  
  
“Yes. There…was a protest…it had been…peaceful…and something happened. It was ten months ago, now.”  
  
No. No nonononono. Nonononononono. The only protest at that time was the one he’d been at, there had been one two months before that, and then one more than a month after that, no others, and was where he’d been injured, where...nononononononono. He was right. It was the same person. Nononononono. Cén fáth dom cén fáth anois.5  
  
The soldier sucked on his teeth, composing his answer.  
  
“Something went wrong. Fire was…opened on the crowd, I’m still not certain as to why, we hadn’t been attacked at that point, it was peaceful…but…and things went bad, in a hurry. I was…trying to get people to move off, I saw someone, a kid, I think, and two other people, father away. The kid was…one of the peaceful protesters, not covered, I mean, and the other two were, couldn’t see their faces.”  
  
He stopped and drank some more water, before taking a few deep breathes.  
  
“One of the two threw a petrol bomb6…I heard…and pulled my arm up…but it hit my arm and face and exploded. Caught fire. It…I couldn’t see, couldn’t move my arm.”  
  
He pulled in more water as Pyro bit down on his check, trying to stay present, not fall back, trying not to remember that protest.   
  
“I…I don’t know what…someone opened one of the sandbags, from the barricades, and dumped it over me. At least, I think that’s what happened. My colleagues were a bit busy to see what happened. Put out the fire. I remember being shoved back towards were the army lines were, one of my colleagues grabbed me and got me to the medics. Been in and out of the hospital since then.”  
  
He looked around slowly, looking at Pyro oddly for a moment, but Pyro far away, stuck in his own head.   
  
“So. Yeah.”  
  
The class looked at him, horrified.  
  
“Well, you asked. It’s not a pleasant thing, after all.”  
  
Mercifully, the bell rang then, and everyone left, including Mr. Brown, who had already packed up and who never stayed past when he had to.  
  
This left Pyro and BTC as the only people in the room, however. Pyro was faintly aware that the rest of the class had left, but he was remembering the protest. He’d been hit, then. By some kind of round, wasn’t sure if it was a live round or rubber7, he wasn’t sure. He’d tried to move away, so he could pull his clothes, maybe make some kind of make-shift bandage, when he saw two others. Older than him, he thought, but not twenty yet, and they were holding…something. They threw it and hit the soldier who was trying to tell him to move off, but he couldn’t he was already he hurt. And fire and blood and the sound…no-one should ever make that kind of sound. He saw…sandbags. Hadn’t ma taught him, sand stops fire? That’s why people used sandbags in barricades, any ways? And he grabbed it and pulled and swore, and finally got it opened. And flung it over the soldier. Soldier, civilian, same side, different side. What did it matter? He was on fire and in pain and had to had to put him out. He flung it and dowsed him with the sand and shoved him towards the soldiers he could see. And then turned and ran as fast as he could away, praying the other soldiers wouldn’t shoot him. Shoot him again. He had fell against a wall finally, wrapped himself up, it was, he thought, in a relatively ‘good’ place…he managed to get to his aunt’s house. She’d cried at him, dragged him to a clinic, and got him cleaned up. Much crying and anger was had that night, but not at him. He never told anyone about the soldier or the sand. Seeing that face, the sound, in his dreams. Oh god. Why.  
  
“Connolly. Connolly. You need to go home now.” BTC was hoping he remembered the kid’s name correctly.  
  
Paul slowly looked up, saw the soldier looking at him, almost…worried?  
  
“Wha…what…where?” He was very…confused, and out of it.  
  
“Class is over…you need to go home…can you get home safely?”  
  
“I…I’m not…how long has it been?”  
  
“About ten minutes since the bell rang.”  
  
BTC looked at Pyro again.  
  
“You’re the kid from the province, aren’t you? The one Mr. Brown mentioned having joined the class for a bit.”  
  
Pyro looked up at him, very very blankly. Please don’t ask me things like that, I want to go home and sleep and cry again.  
  
“Yes sir.” He made a very good attempt to stop shivering, but was starting to fail at that again, which just made him even more miserable.  
  
“You…you remember that protest, don’t you?”  
  
“I wish I didn’t.”  
  
“Hmmm?” He looked genuinely curious that that.  
  
“Was there. Can’t forget it. Was hurt. People were hurt. Bad sounds. Sounds people shouldn’t ever make. I wanna go home now.”  
  
“You…were there?”  
  
“Yes sir. Want to go home. Let me go home, please.”  
  
He jerked back at that, giving Pyro some more space, but not quite enough for him to bolt out of the room with.  
  
“Hm. I’ll be…around…maybe we can talk later?”  
  
“Maybe. Right. Later. Maybe.” No. Never. Not if he could so help it.  
  
With that, BTC backed up far enough that Pyro could get out, which he immediately took the opportunity, throwing his stuff into his bag and bolting out of the room as fast he safely could.  
  
Memories of running, running away from things, of pain and bleeding, of running out of the school towards the house, everything was colliding in his head. He didn’t stop running until he got into the guest bedroom, and even then, he ran into the bathroom and closed and locked the door behind him, before curling up on the floor, crying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes, Translations, etc
> 
> 1 http://utilitarian-essays.com/Parking_lot_at_HAA_Kobe.jpg You see how there are the long rows without the front bumpers to break them up? That’s the sort of parking lot this is. It’s entirely based off the one from the Catholic Church on the island I grew up on.
> 
> 2 The people from Chapter Thirteen, who wrote him the letter about school.
> 
> 3 Indeed! It’s BlameTheController. Explanation forthcoming as to how he ended up there.
> 
> 4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armored_car_%28military%29
> 
> 5 Translation- Why me why now.
> 
> 6 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrol_bomb
> 
> 7 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_bullet


	22. Chapter Seventeen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning- Mentions of violence, self harm

Pyro rocked back and forth as he sat in the bathroom. Baj had put the door back on Sunday night, but he wanted to be in the bathroom, running water was calming. He mumbled as he rocked, trying to get the energy to turn on the shower. He’d turned on the fans in the room, trying to block out all sounds, which was only partly working.  
  
He swayed slightly as he pulled himself upright for long enough to turn the shower on, before crumbling on the floor again. He grumbled to himself, pulling the clothes off and crawling into the shower. He hated remembering things, hated it. Wanted to move forward, not be stuck in the past. Can’t change the past, have to keep moving. But no, it was stuck in his head, relived it. And once one thing came back up, other things did, as well. Hated it. Always hated it. He’d have nightmares tonight, he knew. Take the painkillers, take his allergy medicine, hope it would knock him out; maybe he wouldn’t wake everyone else up, screaming. He doubted it would work.  
  
He stared up at the shower head. Wasn’t warm anymore, or was that cause he was sitting and not standing? He knew, farther away made it colder. Wasn’t sure anymore, how long had he been sitting here, remembering and not remembering and trying to forget? He heard people talking outside. Were they? Was that now or in the past? Memories of not quite three years ago were bubbling again, and that was annoying. Hated it, stupid stupid, try to forget, can’t change the past, move on, make the world a better place, forget it, forget the past, can’t forget the past, it hurts.   
  
The shower felt good. This one did, it was…okay, so not warm now, but he could change it. And the fact that he had control over it made all the difference. That other one, he didn’t…but he hadn’t sat on the floor then, either, he was young then, younger, rather, but he wasn’t _stupid_. He snorted to himself, remembering that. Bastards. They broke down the fucking door to the house. Small part of him was glad da wasn’t home then, part of him wished he had been, maybe then he wouldn’t have been taken along with his mother…he murmured, thinking back to that day. Ma had been interned before, but they’d never come to the house. He remembered learning later, that it had been part of a larger effort, across the six counties1, rounding up and interning a large number of men and women at the same time. They were unlucky enough to have gotten caught up in it.   
  
He swore, leaning his head back against the wall of the shower, letting the water wash over him. It had taken the better part of two months after that, to feel clean again, and he’d only been held for a week, and at the gaol2, at that. It was a month past his twelfth birthday when that had happened. He’d been dragged away from ma; she was taken to one of the prisons. He wasn’t sure why they kept him at the station, that much smaller gaol. Maybe because of his age? They didn’t seem to give a shit about his age while he was there, though. He wondered then, how many people went insane inside those prison walls. He swore when he realized he was mindlessly clawing at his arms and legs again, clawing, trying to be clean, can’t be clean, never clean enough. Was Baj still outside? Was he being called? Or was it those fucking guards, yelling at him, screaming at him to stand, coming for to drag him down to the fucking showers. Didn’t want to stand, didn’t want to move. Wanted home, wanted ma, didn’t want the showers. Wanted to go home. The others, other ones, here, temporarily? No room? Kept here, trying to keep him calm, and tried to protect him. They were dragged away from him; he was pushed down, fuck the stairs. Hated it, dragged. Hated being dragged. Dragged there, and to food, sometimes they just laughed instead, and picked him up. Hated that, hated it, hated….  
  
He groaned and turned the heat higher on the shower. Why’d he have to remember that? Never never never, never touching…he heard others screaming, and himself crying, never touched him, they never _touched_ him, never never, never had to, no need; you could fuck with someone just fine without ever touching them, fuck. Fear, always fear, they’d _look_ at him, fear, fear, never touched him, fear, a matter of time, they would, it was a matter of time. Hotter water, stop scratching yourself, damn it. Never helped, just made scars, stop that. Someone might question it, would Baj question it? Maybe so, maybe so. At least, he thought he’d question the scars on his back…maybe so, maybe so. Would he care? He seemed to care. He also seemed to be getting louder. That _was_ Baj, right? He thought it was. It probably was.  
  
“Stop it, stop it, go away, don’t take me away, don’t.”  
  
Was that his own voice? He wasn’t sure now.  
  
“Don’t, don’t don’t, don’t do that, god, don’t, stop, fuck, stop, no, I’ll walk, stop, god I’ll walk, stop, don’t.”  
  
Why was he talking? He wasn’t sure, wasn’t he in England with Baj and Dinnerbone and Millbee? It wasn’t…no, he wasn’t there, not at that prison, no. He was in the shower at his uncle’s house. And should probably get out of the shower, how long had it been?  
  
He crawled over, and turned off the shower and sighed, before yanking the towel off the bar and wrapping it awkwardly around himself. He groaned and stood up, making his way to the door.  
  
“Who…I swear…who’s there, I heard you, I swear…” He could have sworn he heard them, and them, not those bastards in the past…  
  
“Paul, is that you? What’s happening? Do I need to get an ambulance?”  
  
Wha…what…what?  
  
“N…no! No!” He unlocked the door and yanked it open.  
  
“Please don’t, please…”  
  
Baj, Millbee, and Dinnerbone all looked back at him with varying degrees of fear and concern written on their faces.  
  
\-----  
  
Pyro sat in the living room, having gotten dried and dressed, or at least, was wearing shorts and a t-shirt, which he didn’t wear too often, for obvious scarring reasons, he thought. It was a nice couch, it was really comfy. And was nicely distracting from where Baj, Dinnerbone, and Millbee were all watching him from the other chairs. Apparently he’d been in the bathroom for close to two hours, and they were all quite worried about the whole situation.  
  
It was Dinnerbone who finally broke the silence.  
  
“Are…are you gonna be okay?”  
  
“May…maybe?”  
  
He stared at Pyro for several moments, looking down at the scars on his arms and legs.  
  
“You…you don’t…cut…do you?”  
  
Cut…cut?  
  
“I…I’ve been told I claw at myself, but not when I’m aware of it. Most of the scars aren’t from that, though, they’re from…protests and…something almost three years ago. Please don’t, it hurts to think about it, please…”  
  
“You don’t try to harm yourself, Pyro?”  
  
“No! I keep my nails trimmed so when I…go away…I can’t do much harm…and I wear gloves and socks at night. It’s not intentional. I swear to god, it’s not intentional.” Didn’t like it, pain never helped, preferred to shower, or eat, to get rid of the pain. Was better, felt better, pain reminded him of the pain in the memories, and that was no good, no good at all.  
  
“Why do you do that, then?” Millbee seemed curious, but still…  
  
“I…it makes sense when I’m gone? I think I’m trying to get clean…”  
  
Baj sighed and handed Pyro some tea before speaking.  
  
“I only got called that you booked it out of the school, so I’m assuming something happened at the end of your last class?”  
  
“Yes sir. He had a speaker in, a soldier. What he talked about…made me…remember things. I…went away…came around ten minutes after class ended. I don’t remember running home, but I must have, I suppose. I remember locking myself in the bathroom. I’m sorry.”  
  
“You’ll be okay.”  
  
Would he be? He wasn’t sure.  
  
“I’m sorry.” He stared at the tea for a while before drinking some of it. It tasted good.  
  
“Are you hungry?”  
  
“A bit. What’s the school going to do?”  
  
“Nothing. They called to make sure you got home alright.”  
  
He wasn’t really sure he believed his uncle…but to be fair, he knew, knew, that the teacher hadn’t seen him, hadn’t seen what happened, and he didn’t think the soldier really cared enough to tell Mr. Brown, to be honest.  
  
\-----  
  
Dinner was a very somber affair, and after that they all went back to their own rooms. Dinnerbone and Millbee both told him that if he wanted to talk, they’d be glad to, but he didn’t really feel up to talking now, and besides, his throat was very hoarse, he had the feeling he’d been half screaming and half talking when he was…gone…this time.  
  
\-----  
  
Pyro stared at the ceiling of the room. It was…nice…to have the door there, but he had the feeling that if, when, if? he started screaming in his sleep, that Baj would open it in a heartbeat. He didn’t really know what to make of that. Ma would sing to him, just sit there and sing until he fell back asleep.   
  
He stared at the ceiling, trying to ignore the fact he was wearing socks and gloves. Didn’t like it, always meant something bad had happened and he felt the need to be prepared for that night.  
  
Had to sleep, had school tomorrow. He groaned and turned over, trying to get comfortable. He wasn’t much looking forward to tomorrow, either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes, translations, etc.
> 
> 1 Northern Ireland is made of six counties. There are twenty-six counties in the Republic. It is said that 26+6=1.
> 
> 2 variant spelling of jail, gets used more often on those islands. It’s pronounced exactly the same as jail.


	23. Chapter Eighteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings- Strong Language

Dinnerbone slinked downstairs as quietly as he could. It was about one in the morning, and he didn’t want to wake up anyone that wasn’t awake. He’d been woken up when he heard Pyro, but his bedroom was also directly above Pyro’s room, so that was of no real surprise to him. What he wasn’t certain of was if anyone else had woken up. Well, actually, more like if dad had woken up, Millbee slept as though he was dead, most of the time.  
  
\-----  
  
His throat hurt. Why did his throat hurt? He was trying to remember why, and why was he awake at one in the morning? Wait. Oh right. Those dreams. Nightmares. Whatever.   
  
”Must have woken myself up screaming again.”  
  
He groaned and grabbed at the glass of water beside his bed. Good thing he still had that there, and hadn’t knocked it off in the wild flailing it appeared he had done.   
  
Sighing softly, Pyro got up and grabbed the various blankets and sheets and dumped them back on the bed.   
  
He blinked slowly, confused. He could have sworn he heard someone outside the door, moving fairly quietly. He shrugged slightly and got up and went over to the door, opening it slowly.  
  
 _”Oh, um, hi Dinnerbone.”_ His throat still hurt, though, so he mimed what he was saying as well.  
  
 _”Heya Pyro. You okay?”_  
  
Well…that’s a silly question. I’ve just woken up at one in the morning by screaming myself awake from a nightmare…  
  
 _”No….wanna sit down?”_  
  
Dinnerbone nodded slightly and came into the room, closing the door softly behind him.  
  
 _”Do you get nightmares often?”  
  
“Not usually. Or rather, not ones that I wake people up with.”_ Pyro waved vaguely with a mitten covered hand, looking slightly embarrassed for having woken Dinnerbone up.   
  
_”Ah. I remember Millbee having them for a while, but ever since we’ve been to therapy, it seems to have mostly stopped. I thought actually, at first, that it was Millbee and not you, until I realized that Millbee hadn’t gotten up afterwards or used the bathroom.”_  
  
Pyro shrugged slightly and drank some more water.  
  
“Yeah. Say, do you know if that…soldier…is still gonna be there…um, I guess it’s today, now?”  
  
“Uh….probably. It was someone else last year, but yeah, last guy stuck around the school for about a week, to answer questions, basically.”  
  
Pyro sighed at this. That was pretty much the last thing he really wanted.  
  
“Well, yeah, I know it had to have been a different guy, this one was there this time last year, after all.”  
  
“Ah, he talked about his experiences?”  
  
Pyro blinked at him slowly. How to explain this?  
  
“Not exactly. He talked about how he was injured, but unless you knew which riot he was talking about…”  
  
He shook his head slowly.  
  
“Which leads us to my nightmares? Or rather, helped set them off. Just _had_ to remember that one, hell, I knew what happened to him as soon as he spoke, I saw it firsthand.”  
  
Dinnerbone winced at that, remembering how the soldier had looked. He personally thought he looked like The Hound from Game of Thrones, or rather, like how The Hound was described in the books, not the show, so much. The thought of seeing that happen to someone…  
  
“I, um, can I hug you?”  
  
Pyro was slightly surprised by the sudden question.  
  
“Ummmm, sure?”  
  
Dinnerbone leaned over and grabbed Pyro in a very large hug.  
  
“Sorry. You seem like you could use hugs.”  
  
“Hugs are nice, I suppose. Ma hugs me whenever I get ready to leave and whenever I return home.”  
  
“Well, I like giving hugs, so if you ever actually wanna hug, just ask.”  
  
Pyro blinked. That sounded kinda nice, though it _was_ one in the morning and he was groggy.  
  
“Okay. I think I’ll try to sleep again now. Sorry about that.”  
  
“Naw, don’t worry. Sleep well!” With that, Dinnerbone got up and quietly left, closing the door behind him.  
  
\-----  
  
Millbee sucked on his teeth thoughtfully as they all grabbed some breakfast before finishing getting ready to walk to school. He knew some people at the very least had seen Pyro’s…freak out…yesterday, but he wasn’t sure how they’d react to it. Hell, When he had that class two years ago, he’d shut down and hidden under the desk when the guy had started to talk about how screwed up the people were there, and he hadn’t even known Pyro at the time! It was just on general principle!   
  
So he thought perhaps that people would talk about it and then ignore it, since it wasn’t really all that unusual for that class, and there had been people crying earlier in the day from the same class, after all.   
  
Still, he thought it best to be prepared for anything, and had some ideas brewing on what to do if anything came from it. He also had a very good plan to keep tabs on both Pyro and that soldier, uh, BTC? Was it? and make sure that the soldier stayed away from Pyro, even if it meant he had to suddenly appear or get people to help him keep them apart.  
  
He nodded to himself as they set off. He’d called some of his friends and told them what he had wanted to do, and they agreed it sounded like a good idea. He didn’t want things to seem…strange, so he asked them simply to distract and ask questions, etc., of the man, so to that he never really got the chance to talk to Pyro, and to do the same with Pyro so he wouldn’t have as much to worry about, about being, say, ambushed by said man.  
  
\-----  
  
Pyro shuffled through his morning classes slowly. So far, no-one had said anything to him other than asking what answers he got for some of the homework, so maybe…  
  
In any case, they didn’t seem much more interested than they were on Monday or Tuesday, and they seemed what he thought was the normal amount of interested in regards to new classmates.  
  
Soon enough, or what seemed to take forever, it was lunch time. He wondered if the soldier, who he had spotted earlier, if he was gonna try and talk to him during lunch. God he hoped not.  
  
He yawned as he grabbed some lunch and headed out to grab a table. He honestly thought they needed either bigger lunchrooms or more lunch periods. Or maybe both. He shrugged to himself as he sat down at one of the tables towards the back, where there weren’t as many people. They all seemed to crowd into the front tables with as many people as they could, he found it kind of silly.  
  
Pyro looked around the cafeteria, people watching. He blinked in surprise when he realized the soldier was also here now, he had kind of figured he would have eaten earlier, this was the second lunch period, not the first one, after all. Don’t come over here. For God’s sake, don’t come over here. Why do you look like you’re trying to come over here? Stop that, damn it.   
  
\-----  
  
BTC winced to himself. Why did it seem like everyone had questions for him now, when he wanted to talk to that kid about yesterday? Oh come on, why don’t you just leave off, I don’t want to talk to you, you should have asked questions when you already had the chance!  
  
He grunted softly and stomped on past them, ignoring them as they tried to get his attention, only watching where he was going long enough to not run into anyone, and keeping an eye on the kid from yesterday, Connolly, wasn’t it? He snorted to himself before sitting down at the table, which he had noted that the kid had all to himself. Made sense, it was in the back of the lunchroom and rather isolated. Most of the kids preferred to sit near their friends and other classmates.   
  
“Hello Connolly.”  
  
The kid blinked at him, looked away and then back at his food and kept eating.  
  
BTC simply sat and waited for the kid to finish eating, which he did in due time.  
  
“Hello, Connolly.”  
  
The kid blinked at him and looked away again.  
  
BTC wasn’t quite sure what to say at this point, but the kid finally responded.  
  
“Please leave me alone.”  
  
“I just want to talk with you.”  
  
“Please leave me alone, I don’t want to talk to anyone.” The kid looked less unhappy and more actively pissed off at this point.  
  
“And I want to talk with you. Therefore, we are at an impasse.”   
  
The kid stared at him implacably for what seemed like a long time, or long for someone who most people didn’t want to look at anymore.  
  
“No, cause there’s no reason for you to talk with me. _Therefore_ , you should leave me alone.”  
  
BTC growled at him for that, and the kid jerked backwards and turned a very strange shade of deathly white. Well, he wasn’t quite expecting that strong of a reaction, whoops. He was trying to get him to back down, not terrify the kid.  
  
 _“You goddamn know what I want to talk about, and we **will** talk. You have him last period, I’ll wait.”_ He said quietly, practically hissing it at the kid, pissed off.  
  
The kid gave him the most withering glare he’d seen in quite some time, grabbed his things, and bolted from the cafeteria. Goddamn it, and now there were people looking at him again, and they looked pissed off. BTC ignored them entirely and stomped out of the cafeteria and went back into the teacher’s lounge to wait out the rest of the day. Just wanted to talk but no, you have to be a stubborn Irish bastard about it, don’t you? God damn it.  
  
\-----  
  
Pyro stomped off to spend the rest of his lunch time in the bathroom. Once he was reasonably certain he was alone, he let lose a long string of some very vile Irish curses.  
  
\-----  
  
Millbee swore to himself softly. God damn it. Well, he had one last ditch effort to try, which was tracking down the kid in Pyro’s class, Timothy.   
  
_”Hey! Hey! Tim!”  
  
“Eh, what is it Millbee?”  
  
“You got class with P…Paul, last period, right?”  
  
“Have all the same classes actually, but yes…?”  
  
“Stay with him until he leaves, please? I think that soldier is gonna try to talk to him again…”  
  
“Oh! Sure, I’ll stay with him, haven’t anything planned for today anyways.”  
  
“Thanks!”_  
  
Millbee nodded and headed off for his own classes. He and Dinnerbone intended to wait until Pyro showed up to walk home, just to be on the safe side.  
  
\-----  
  
Pyro stared at the clock on the wall for a brief moment. Class was almost done; the teacher had already packed up and was getting ready to leave as well. He both wanted the class to end and not. Ending meant going home. Ending also meant that he had to avoid that bastard, so…  
  
He sighed as the bell rang and everyone poured out of the classroom. Not everyone. He was still there, of course. And so was Tadhg, he noticed.  
  
“Hey Tim, would you help me with my books?”  
  
“Sure.”  
  
They both put their books away and got ready to leave the classroom, with Pyro really hoping that that bastard wasn’t going to appear again.   
  
“Hello Connolly.”  
  
And he just had the worst possible luck, didn’t he?  
  
“And goodbye.” And he would have left, but nooooo, the soldier just _had to_ block the door.  
  
“No.”  
  
“Ahem, we would like to go home now.” Tadhg finally said.  
  
“You can leave; I need to talk to Connolly.”  
  
“No, we’re going to leave together.”  
  
BTC stared at Tadhg, trying to get him to agree to leave, but he was having none of that.  
  
“You should go.”  
  
“NO, I’m not going anywhere without Paul.”  
  
BTC growled at Tadhg but he completely ignored him for that.  
  
“Oooo, trying to scare me off, then? Suck it up and get out of the doorway, we’re gonna go home.”  
  
“No! I damn well intend to talk to Connolly and talk to him I will!”  
  
He growled again and stalked over to Tadhg and started to jab his hand at him.  
  
“Now you listen here, I’ll talk to who I want to talk to, and you will damn well not interfere!”  
  
Tadhg slowly looked down at BTC’s hand and then back up at his face, with a slight smirk.  
  
“And you should learn to leave things well enough alone.”  
  
He growled again and leaned in towards Tadhg.  
  
“You should know better than that, you fucking Irish bastard, besides, how do you intend to keep me from talking to him, hmm?”  
  
Tadhg grinned even wider at that.  
  
“Oh, I don’t know, _sir_ , why don’t you, oh, ask him?”  
  
BTC looked up and towards Paul. Or rather, were he would have been if he hadn’t very quietly left as soon as BTC’s attention was focused on Tadhg.   
  
“You god damned fenian1 son of a bitch!”  
  
“Language, language! You should leave him alone, you know, you really should.”  
  
BTC did not seem to appreciate that, and tried to grab at him, but Tadhg bounced out of the way and rather quickly left the school behind.  
  
BTC swore and punched the nearest wall several times before calming down somewhat. What the hell, he wanted to talk to the kid, but no! What the…what the hell did these people think was going to happen? He just freaking wanted to talk!  
  
\-----  
  
Pyro swore to himself as they walked out of the building, feeling very guilty for having left Tadhg behind, even though Tim had only done so so that he could escape, and if he stayed, that would be worth nothing.   
  
“You gonna be okay?”  
  
“Maybe, I just…he’s a bastard, and should leave things alone, and now I’ve left Ta…Tim there to deal with him, damn it.”  
  
“Ah, man, Tim will be fine, I’m sure. He can handle himself.”  
  
He was proven mostly correct when they saw Tim rapidly bounce out of the school and head in the direct opposite direction from them, at a good clip.  
  
“I’d say we get going a little _faster_ now!”  
  
“Good idea!”  
  
At that all three of them quickly hurried home, mumbling to themselves about what had happened that day.  
  
\-----  
  
BTC swore softly to himself. Maybe, just possibly, that kid was right, and he was going about this all wrong. But if that was the case, what should he do, then? Write the kid a letter explaining why he wanted to talk? Would he even read it? Well, it had to have a better freaking chance than this past day, at least!  
  
He sighed and pulled out some writing paper and pens and sat down and wrote a letter to Connolly.  
  
 _Hello Connolly. I haven’t meant to upset you, however, I do in fact, want to talk to you about that riot…”_   
  
BTC yawned as he finished up his letter, it was about a page long now, he guessed. Well, all he had to do was convince Connolly to actually take it tomorrow, humph.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes, Etc
> 
> 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenian Used as a derogatory term for Irish Catholics and Irish Nationalists in general, it’s a go-to insult.


	24. Chapter Nineteen

Pyro paced the floor of the room, mumbling to himself. He didn’t really want to go to school tomorrow, not with all that nonsense. At least the week was already half through, only tomorrow and Friday left to get through. He was tired of this nonsense, really. He was starting to wonder what he should do if this soldier, if he didn’t leave him alone, or at least, find a less terrifying method of talking to him. He knew that if he was English, he could just call up the base the soldier was from, and talk to his Commander, his superior officer, of course. But he wasn’t sure he could do that, I mean, who would believe the Irish kid saying that a British officer was being out of line, after all? He _had_ a military I.D. thanks to his da, but he wasn’t sure how far it would get him, hell, he wasn’t even allowed on any bases, could he even call them? He wasn’t rightly sure anymore.   
  
\-----  
  
BTC paced the teacher’s lounge, waiting for Connolly’s lunch time. He just hoped that he would remain calm enough to accept the letter from him and not make a big scene about it. There was the hope that the kid would find the letter a less… _upsetting_ method to communicate through, at least until they could talk later. He found letters to be less…frightening, although still upsetting to some extent, he hoped the kid would agree with him on that.  
  
\-----  
  
Pyro sat at his (when had he made it his?) table, sighing to himself. He had heard rumors that the soldier had been spotted today, but had made himself awfully scarce. Would he appear again today at lunch? His luck certainly had made no appearances thus far, and he doubted he’d have any better luck today.  
  
And his string of bad luck continued, he thought darkly, having spotted the soldier carefully making his way over to him. He noted however, that he seemed to be doing so very carefully, attracting as little attention as he possibly could.  
  
After what seemed like ages, BTC finally made his way to where Pyro was sitting, and sat down.  
  
“Hello.”  
  
“Hi.” No need to be rude, but really now.  
  
BTC reached to pull something out of a pocket, and Pyro hoped he didn’t look _too_ freaked out by the motion.  
  
“Here. Take this.” With that, BTC handed him an envelope with his name on it. He nervously took it from him; he didn’t want to cause a big scene right now.  
  
“Um…okay…?”  
  
“Read it after school. Thanks.” With that he got up and left as quickly as he had arrived.  
  
Did…did he just _thank_ me for taking the letter? What in the world is in this thing??  
  
\-----  
  
Pyro sighed as he finished packing up his stuff to get ready to leave school. The soldier had, in fact, left him alone the rest of the day once he had given him the letter. The fact that he didn’t want him to read it until after school made him…nervous, but he was sure he’d be fine. He’d been actually fairly nice about the giving of it, and had even left him alone after that, so it probably wasn’t _too_ bad, right?  
  
Shrugging, he grabbed his things as the bell rang and headed out to where Dinnerbone was waiting.  
  
“Hey Dinnerbone. What happened with Millbee?”  
  
“He’s out practicing for football1, why, you wanted to talk to him?”  
  
“No, no. You’re actually easier to talk to, don’t tell him that!”  
  
Dinnerbone laughed at that, amused.  
  
“Ha, don’t worry about that! Hey, what are you holding?”  
  
Pyro looked down at the letter as they walked slowly.  
  
“It’s a letter. From that soldier. Said to wait until after school to read it.”  
  
Dinnerbone blinked and stopped, with Pyro following suit.  
  
“So, so, read it now! What, what’s he doing now?”  
  
Pyro shrugged and opened it and read it, blinking rapidly by the end of the letter. He sighed to himself and shook his he slowly back and forth.  
  
“What? What does it say? What?”  
  
Pyro shook his head slowly and silently handed the letter over for Dinnerbone to read.  
  
Dinnerbone looked at it and read it silently to himself.  
  
 _Hello Connolly. I haven’t meant to upset you, however, I do in fact, want to talk to you about that riot, since it rather impacts both of us. I’ve been trying to learn what happened then, and I’ve exhausted the list of everyone I could talk to, until you showed up and…it got…mentioned.  
  
I really **am** sorry for forcing you to remember that riot, it was very bad, and what you must have seen, well, I know what happened to me at least, and the idea that you even had to hear that is just. That plus what happened to your fellow protesters is just…I…I am sorry about that. I still don’t know how or why things got kicked off.  
  
But in any case. I do want to talk about what happened ten months ago. I’ve talked with all of my, erm…co-workers, and they claim to have not seen anything, as focused as they were with what they were doing at the time. I mean, you were probably, erm, busy yourself, trying to get somewhere safer, but well, I want to at least get to talk to you about it! I don’t know how much if anything you know about what happened, but well, it’s at least something new.  
  
So, um. There’s a park about a three blocks from the school, it’s a nice place. It’s got lots of benches and gazebos and such. And a place to buy food, even.   
  
Park. Nice place. Why don’t we meet sometime on Saturday, since you don’t have school then? Just um, pick a time and let me know, and I’ll meet you there. Right. Write me back and give me your answer tomorrow, please._  
  
It was signed as _Sincerely, BTC_ with something scribbled out under the BTC part, to which Dinnerbone blinked slightly.  
  
“Erm.”  
  
“Yeah. So, uh…you doing anything Saturday, Dinnerbone?”  
  
Dinnerbone blinked at him for a long while before slowly starting to walk again.  
  
“No. I suppose it’s the only way to get him to stop bothering you?”  
  
“Probably, so I’d like you to go with me. How does, like, one pm sound?”  
  
“Sounds fine to me, I’d be glad to go with you.”  
  
“Thanks.”  
  
Dinnerbone nodded at Pyro as they got back to the house.  
  
\-----  
  
Pyro stared at the piece of paper as though it were mortally offending him. Given that it was a letter he was trying to write and failing at, it probably was.   
  
“Why does writing have to be so difficult!”  
  
He sighed again at the paper before trying again to write something. At this point, he was simply glad he had decided to finish his homework _before_ trying to write this stupid letter.  
  
 _Hello BTC._  
  
Fine. We can meet at that park, at one pm. I’ve been told there is an open style gazebo that is partly surrounded by willow trees, which should work. I’ll wait a half hour, if you don’t get there by then, I’m leaving.   
  
Pádraig Ó Conghaile/Paul Connolly  
  
He wasn’t too sure about putting down his Irish name, but surely this soldier had to know that Paul wouldn’t have been his birth name, after all.  
  
\-----  
  
Pyro sighed. Today was Friday, and he just wanted the day to be over with. Lunch time was almost over, and he was starting to doubt that that soldier would even show up to get the freaking reply.  
  
Just as soon as he thought that, BTC appeared in front of the table and sat down.  
  
“Hello Connolly.”  
  
Pyro stared at him for a moment. Did he know what I was thinking??  
  
“Hello. Here.” With that, he shoved the letter across the table at BTC and went back to staring at him.  
  
“Thanks.” He took the letter and read it quickly.  
  
“Okay. See you later.” With that, he got up and taking the letter with him, promptly vanished in much the same manner as he had appeared.  
  
Pyro just shook his head slowly at that. Just how strange was this man, anyways??  
  
\-----  
  
Dinnerbone looked at his clock. Why was he awake at eight in the morning on a Saturday? Oh, right, he was going with Pyro to the park today, and that very annoying soldier would be there.  
He really hoped today would go well for everyone involved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes, etc.
> 
> 1 Soccer


	25. Chapter Twenty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings- Mentions of Violence, swearing

Pyro yawned as he made himself another Ulster Fry1, hoping that he would feel better with this and some lunch in him before going to the park.  
  
He wasn’t sure how this whole meeting would go, but what he did know was that he’d have to talk about that riot. The whole idea made him upset, but…he thought that with Dinnerbone there, he’d be able to do that. And hadn’t Dinnerbone said he could hug him if he wanted to? He really hoped that Dinnerbone wouldn’t mind being held onto, really.   
  
That day had started out well enough, he supposed. He’d gotten up nice and early and gone to one of his cousins homes, and they had gotten ready there and had made up some signs to carry with them, just basic equal rights signs and such. He’d just been wearing sneakers, jeans, and a long sleeved t-shirt, none of which had any sort of nationalist slogans or anything on them, this was meant to be a peaceful protest, and he damn well intended on it staying peaceful if he had any say in the matter.  
  
It had, actually, started out fairly well. For a while, things went pretty well. The army and RUC2 were there, but staying back, and letting them protest, as it was still peaceful. They’d been protesting calmly, things looked like it would go well.  
  
He didn’t know what happened. He remembered hearing _something_ , from away from him, where the army was, and then they’d opened fire, and the RUC had attacked them, and he had gotten shoved, pushed to one side, and then…pain. He thought it was from having fallen at first, and then he felt wet and blood and realized he’d been hit. Something caught his attention, and he saw the solider, BTC actually, he knew now, waving at him and shouting something, but it was too loud, too much noise. He thought he was trying to tell him to move off, so he had picked himself up and had half turned away, started to move away, when he saw two kids, kids? They were probably only a few years older than he was, and they had something in their hands, and were bleeding and looked pissed, or as pissed as someone whose face is covered can look. He thought one of them had shouted something at the soldier, he picked out something about _Don’t_ and _leave him_ but he wasn’t sure what they were saying. The soldier had turned towards them, half between him and them, and they looked…they twisted and said something to each other, and threw the thing at the soldier. It had exploded on impact; it had been a petrol bomb.  
  
The sound the soldier had made…was not something he’d wish on even the worse people. If you’d asked him before, even given what he’d seen, he’d have been fine with lighting them on fire if it meant getting them to leave his island, but after that? No. He wanted to hurt the people who had hurt him, but he couldn’t, that was just…he’d always preferred protests, and that wasn’t going to change anytime soon.   
  
He had grabbed at the sandbags then and had managed to get it dumped over the soldier and then he froze. If he left him there, the kids or someone else would get to him and then, what? So he had grabbed him, shoved him, pushed him towards the other soldiers he could see, and waited long enough for one of the other soldiers to grab him, and then he had run, praying that they wouldn’t shoot him again. He wasn’t sure that had worked, wasn’t sure if he had gotten hit again, there was too much adrenaline; he had run the entire way to his aunt’s house.   
  
He’d practically fallen against the door, and hit the bell and held it. She’d yanked the door open and had to quickly catch him. She had started to swear at him, but had then seen his injuries and had dragged him to the car and put him inside in the back and dumped blankets on him.   
  
What had happened after that, at the clinic, he wasn’t sure. They’d given him something for the pain, and he had drifted in and out, so tired. Ma and Da had come at some point and took him home. He told them as best as he could what had happened, leaving out the part with the soldier and fire, but had told them how it had been peaceful, and something had happened and they had gotten attacked.  
  
\-----  
  
Pyro shook himself, and sat down at the table with the food. Dinnerbone and Baj had both joined him; Millbee had gone off to football practice again.  
  
“Uh, hey, dad?”  
  
“Yeah, Nathan?”  
  
“Do you mind if me and Pyro go to the park after lunch?”  
  
“No, what time were you planning on going?”  
  
“Oh, like, say twelve thirty.”  
  
“Oh, that’s fine.”  
  
Both Dinnerbone and Pyro smiled at Baj then, much happier.  
  
\-----  
  
They ate lunch in silence, neither wanting to talk much before they left. Dinnerbone grabbed one of the picnic baskets and shoved some fruit and bottled water into it along with a table cloth.  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Make it look erm, more normal.   
  
“Oh. Makes sense.” Pyro nodded at that logic and they set off for the park together.  
  
\-----  
  
BTC walked toward the park, it was almost one pm, he figured he’d actually get to the gazebo _at_ one, so that would be good.  
  
As he approached, he noted that it looked like Paul was already there, no big surprise, but was _was_ a surprise was that he seemed to have brought someone with him, along with a picnic basket. Had he brought along one of his cousins? It seemed likely, yeah. And if it made him more comfortable…well then, he was sure that the cousin would be fine; it had to be one of the ones from here, right?  
  
Walking up to the gazebo steps, he realized they had been talking and had fallen silent once they had seen him. He should probably greet the kid, hm.   
  
“Hello, Connolly.”  
  
“Hello.” BTC shrugged and went and sat down across from where they were seated.  
  
“Hi. I’m Nathan. His cousin.” With that, Dinnerbone gave BTC his best death glare, though it was not a very intimidating thing, sadly.  
  
“Hi. I’m BTC. I’m just going to talk, you know.”  
  
That caused both of them to glare at him, to which he sighed.  
  
BTC started to say something but Paul raised his hand, stopping him.  
  
“We both already know what you want to know from me.”  
  
With that, he leaned against Dinnerbone and started to speak.   
  
“That day had started out so well, you know? It was peaceful. I set out with my cousins, with signs and placards, talking of chants, and met up with everyone else. It was peaceful, things were fine, it had been fine, been fine for so long.”  
  
He shook his head before continuing.  
  
“Something, heard something from your own people, something, and then gunshots, and the RUC surged forward and attacked us and things went mad and loud.”  
  
He took the bottle of water and drank some of it.  
  
“I was shot then.”  
  
Both BTC and Nathan blinked at him then, finding that surprising in one case and rather upsetting in the other case. BTC hadn’t known the kid had been one of the injured, and he had been looking at the records from then. Had the kid been taken to an IRA clinic, or something? But they’d have said if a kid had gotten injured. He _had_ read that there were more injured, but not named, could it be because he was too young?  
  
Dinnerbone was surprised that he hadn’t mentioned being shot before, but supposed that he hadn’t wanted to think about that day, and so hadn’t said anything about it.  
  
“And then, I don’t know. I fell against the wall of some stupid building, stupid brick buildings being all pointy. There was some soldier, you, I guess, and it looked like you were shouting, but I couldn’t hear anything, at least not over the rest of the sounds, and I was pissed off, and I went to try to move away, get to my aunt’s house, when I saw these two…kids, they couldn’t have been much older than me, and their faces were covered.”  
  
He shook slightly at that and leaned more on Dinnerbone.  
  
“And then they looked upset, and you moved and they looked more upset, and I think they said something, but I could barely hear them, and then you moved again and they said something to each other, and then they threw that damned thing at you.”  
  
He shrugged slightly, from the pain.  
  
“And then you made horrible sounds, and I grabbed at the sandbags, and pulled one open and flung it on you. I wanted to run away at that point, but figured to shove you towards your own people. So , yeah, and then I ran, and I don’t know, I think I was shot again at that point, but I just kept running till I got to my aunt’s place. And she took me to a clinic. The End.”  
  
BTC blinked at Paul in surprise. Partly from what he had just said and partly from how he looked like he was trying to sink into Nathan. So, he _had_ been taken to some kind of clinic, well, uh, at least he wasn’t still injured? Or maybe he was, BTC was still injured, after all, and the kid’s injuries could simply be less obvious.  
  
\-----  
  
Pyro shivered and leaned against Dinnerbone, waiting for BTC to respond to what he had said.  
  
He appeared conflicted, however, and was taking a fair bit of time to respond, so Pyro took the opportunity to eat some of the fruit and the water.  
  
“Right. So. Um. That. Um.” BTC blinked rapidly, looking extremely disoriented.  
  
“So, um….right. Okay. Right. That.” Pyro was being to get worried for him; he didn’t think he should be quite so discombobulated about this, after all.  
  
BTC took a few more moments to compose himself as Pyro sat watching him.  
  
“Okay. See, I was totally not expecting to, you know, come across the person who, you know, sand, and stuff. I, uh, kind of just figured you might have, you know, seen it, or seen the person or people who threw the bottle at me, and so on.”  
  
“So, uh, there’s that. It, um…thank you?”  
  
Well, that wasn’t the reaction Pyro was expecting. He wasn’t _quite_ certain _what_ he was expecting, but that wasn’t it.   
  
Pyro shook his head slightly before responding. “I, um…what? I don’t know medicine, I can’t help people who are shot, but I can certainly put out a fire…it was pretty much the only thing I could do.”  
  
BTC blinked at him before speaking again.  
  
“I mean, you, what? You’re, you’re Irish, I mean, yeah?”  
  
Pyro blinked back at BTC.  
  
“Yes. I’m a Northern Irish Nationalist. What about it?”  
  
BTC stared at him for a long while, appearing, he thought, to be fairly confused.  
  
“Yes. So, uh…why would you…?”  
  
Pyro looked at him, rather confused. What sort of question was that, even?  
  
“Um…cause you were on fire? Like, why wouldn’t I? I’ve known people who’ve died; I don’t really want more people to do so, even if that means people who are attacking me. I mean, if you’d have attacked me, I’d have just ran and let you deal with it at that point, and not tried to get you back to your own people, but really! There’s been far more than enough deaths at home, damn it!”   
  
Pyro shook his head, annoyed, and continued.  
  
“Like, what sort of question is that even!? My being Irish somehow makes me incapable of caring about anyone else? That’s insane! I don’t want people to die, I want my country whole. Those two things aren’t even the same thing, Dia diabhal é!3 What the hell man, why would I not try to help people?!”  
  
“No! That’s not what I…not what I…I didn’t mean that…”  
  
“Oh? What the hell did you mean, then?” He still looked extremely pissed off, but Dinnerbone didn’t think he was going to instantly jump up and leave now.  
  
“I…I mean, ummm…That is, Ummmm. I didn’t mean to upset you!”  
  
Pyro snorted at that. “That’s not an answer, leathcheann4!”  
  
BTC stared at him, looking like he didn’t know how to answer that.  
  
“I, um…sorry? I, um, I need to think about that.”  
  
Pyro nodded at him for that.  
  
“Yes, yes, you should. Fine, I think…I think we should probably go home now.”  
  
“I…yeah. Stay safe.”  
  
“Yeah, sure. Have a…good…day.”  
  
With that, both Pyro and Dinnerbone grabbed their things and left, leaving BTC sitting in the gazebo.  
  
\-----  
  
Pyro sighed as he sat in his room. That had been unpleasant, but maybe he’d be left alone more, now. He had spoken with Dinnerbone about it, and gotten more hugs, which was nice. They both agreed to wait and see what happened on Monday with the soldier, see what he did, and then go from there, since when they had left, he had just sat there, and hadn’t done anything.   
  
\-----  
  
BTC sighed as he sat in his barracks room, thinking about what was said earlier today. He kept going over what he and Connolly had said.   
  
Was he…he was a good person, right? And good people aren’t…but he was good? But no…because if he was… _that_ , that wasn’t good, and good people aren’t like that…  
  
He groaned and flopped backwards onto the bed.  
  
If he _had to be_ honest with himself…well. He might, just possibly _might_ not be quite as good a person as he’d like to think. And that upset him. He wasn’t sure how to remedy that situation, either.   
  
That was a bitch to think about, that he wasn’t as good as he’d like to think. And if he was, actually, was…and thinking about it more, and thinking about his colleagues…yeah. So, if he was, actually, truly…racist or prejudiced or a bigot, what have you then…what could he do about that?   
  
He had no idea, and didn’t really like that idea at all, but if it was true, then what should he do about it? The simplest way, he supposed, was to, you know, go and talk to people, get to know them. But currently, Connolly was the only one he actually knew, and…yeah. Well, he was sure he’d figure out something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes, Translations, etc
> 
> 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_breakfast#Ulster same thing as he made earlier in the story.
> 
> 2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Ulster_Constabulary in our timeline, they became the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) back in 2001. In this timeline, that didn’t happen. The RUC was regarded as being extremely biased against Catholics.
> 
> 3 G-d damn it!
> 
> 4 Idiot


	26. Chapter Twenty One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings-Mentions of Violence

Pyro sighed. He had spoken with Baj and had decided that he was going try and talk to the priest for a bit tomorrow after confession, about what he should do about being bothered by the soldier. He hoped that they would be able to figure something out, particularly since he would only be here for about another two weeks, give or take, after having spoken to his da.  
  
That made him happy, of course, but the whole uncertainty of it was very annoying. Uncertainty might be a fact of life, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.  
  
\-----  
  
BTC groaned as he paced the barracks floor, still thinking to himself.  
  
He needed to talk to someone, badly. He hated admitting that, but that was a straight up fact at this point, and not doing so would simply make him unfit for duty. And that was one thing he really didn’t want to ever happen.   
  
Sighing, BTC got up and walked down to where the bases Chaplain would be.  
  
 _knock knock knock_  
  
“Come in.”  
  
BTC opened the door and walked in slowly.  
  
“Hello Chaplain.”  
  
“Ah, hello Sergeant. Is there something I can help you with?”  
  
“Yes, actually.”  
  
BTC looked kind of nervous and closed the door behind him, before walking over and taking the seat the Chaplain was indicating for him. Going for help, _particularly_ mental was **not** something he did often, if at all, and he wasn’t looking forward to explaining this to anyone who had seen him. But hell, they could go…yeah.   
  
“What is it, please?”  
  
“I, erm…everything here is confidential, right?”  
  
“Yes, it is. It operates under the same rules as, say, confession, if you were wondering.”  
  
He wasn’t really, it being confidential was enough for him, but well, that was good, he thought.  
Sighing softly, he started to talk about what had been bothering him.  
  
\-----  
  
Pyro yawned as he sat listening to the Mass finish up. His uncle had elected to remain with the car this time, and had parked on one of the side streets so he wouldn’t get boxed in. He figured Baj really didn’t like the ladies, as he had let him walk up by himself this time. They had mostly left him alone this time, which he was thankful for, as he mostly wanted to simply go to Mass and confession and then speak to the priest afterwards. He’d already told Baj that he was going to take a bit longer today, so no problems there, he though.  
  
Confession went normally enough, he supposed, though he had used the time to ask to speak to the priest separately, rather than during confession, as that would take too much time away for other people. The priest had agreed to this readily enough, and suggested that he go wait in the office afterwards for him to finish the few remaining confessions.  
  
Pyro swung his feet as he sat on a chair in the priest’s office. Or the church’s office, rather, since it didn’t belong to a specific priest, of course.  
  
He was slightly bored, waiting for the priest to come in from the rest of the confessions.  
  
The door opened and the priest walked in.  
  
“Hello Paul.”  
  
“Hello Father1.”  
  
“So, what is it that you wanted to talk about, then?”  
  
“Well, it’s like this, you see…”  
  
\-----  
  
Dinnerbone stared at the table as he set out place settings for lunch. Dad and Pyro had returned from the church earlier, though they had spent longer there than they had the last two weeks. Pyro had mentioned that he had wanted to talk to him after lunch, but when he tried to read his expression, he wasn’t really sure if it was a good or bad thing.  
  
He shrugged to himself as everyone sat down to eat. He was glad to note that lunch seemed to have gone well, or at least, everyone was mostly quiet and calm during it.   
  
When they finished eating, he got up and followed Pyro to his room.  
  
\-----  
  
Pyro stared up at the ceiling of the bedroom while Dinnerbone sat on the desk chair, waiting for him to speak. Pyro had closed the door behind them when they went in, Dinnerbone figured that whatever he wanted to talk about, he had only wanted to speak to him about, and not the rest of the house as well.  
  
“You said before, you didn’t mind if I talked to you about stuff, right? Is that still true?”  
  
Dinnerbone blinked at that, but nodded. “Of course it still is.”  
  
“Even though it’s really not nice stuff?” Well, that was a vast understatement.  
  
“I…yes. If it makes you feel better, then yes.”  
  
Pyro sat up and looked at Dinnerbone for a long moment.  
  
“No, I mean, I wanted to talk to you about bad stuff, painful stuff. Stuff from home and why despite knowing that trying to be nice to this soldier is a good thing, why I really really don’t want to and am, honestly, am kind of scared of doing so. So, do you still want to listen?” With that he flopped back down on to the bed, awaiting the reply. The priest had suggested he talk to Dinnerbone, well, no, he had suggested he talk to someone his own age, and since he had mentioned he got along well with Nathan, that’s what the priest had gone with. He sighed softly.  
  
Dinnerbone sucked on his teeth for a long moment.  
  
“I…yes. I understand it’s not pleasant stuff, but I’ll do my best to help you.” He really did want to help, and hell, he had a therapist himself who he could just talk to if it was that bad.  
  
Pyro sat up and nodded at him slowly before taking a glass of water and draining it. He had set up several glasses in the room; he figured he might need them at some point.  
  
“Well. As you know, I saw him get injured. But that…that incident…that’s not why I have such an issue with the soldiers, no. That’s from what happened three years ago, and what you heard when I locked myself into the shower after school that one time.”  
  
Dinnerbone looked at him attentively, listening carefully, but not saying anything just yet.  
  
Pyro sighed and stared up at the ceiling for a moment before continuing.  
  
“Ma was interned before. Um…arrested and held without trial and without being charged for any crime. That’s what internment is, I mean. And that was…we survived it. But, but. Three years ago, we didn’t know it at the time, but there was a big thing, all over the occupied six counties, they were rounding up people by the scores. And they, and they came and…da wasn’t home at the time, and they and they broke down the front door and came and and and grabbed me and ma and dragged us away. They separated us then, they took ma somewhere else, down to Armagh’s woman’s prison2, I think, but it doesn’t really matter. We were separated. They took me to the gaol in town, though. I think they couldn’t decide what to do with me at first. I was there a week, Dinnerbone, a week. Just a week, but that was plenty long enough.” He shuddered at the memory, trying to avoid crying again.  
  
“That was…it was bad. They were holding some others there, they were also interned, but the soldiers and the police were waiting for room to be opened up at one of the prisons, I think. And doesn’t that fucking tell you something when you’ve interned so many people that you don’t even have any room for them anymore? And the fucking war has been going on for god, decades now, it’s not like we’re exactly _low_ on prison space, what with the number of prisons they’ve built!”  
  
He sighed again, aggravated at the entire thing.  
  
“So they, they held us there. The other internees tried to help me, protect me, but that just made things worse for them and worse for me. I was twelve, Dinnerbone, twelve. A twelve year old shouldn’t have things like that happen, right, right?” He didn’t wait for Dinnerbone to reply before he continued.  
  
“It’s difficult to talk about. You’re the first person I’ve talked to about it, actually. Yeah. They…one does not expect prison guards to be kind, but they, they were downright cruel, and needlessly so. They kicked and punched us if we didn’t move fast enough, or if we moved too fast, or basically because they felt like it and claimed anything at all as a reason. I can’t even tell you how often I was shoved into the cell hard enough to hit the wall and slide down it. I mean, like, get swung into the cell, so you hit the wall that was…ah, perpendicular, you know? to the door. I still have scars, you know. Not just the ones you saw, but all over my back and chest as well. Luckily, they’ve been fading; the injuries were mostly shallow, but still.” He groaned softly, sighing. Not pleasant, not pleasant at all. Even though those injuries were shallow, they had hurt a lot. Rather like paper cuts, he supposed. He had ended up just kind of pressing on them to stop them from bleeding, and tried to ignore them after that. Mostly though, he was glad that the time he had hit his forehead against the wall hadn’t scarred.   
  
“About the only good thing was that they always remembered to feed us, though they watched us the entire time, and usually only had spoons…they seemed to think that forks and knives were too dangerous…I understand with the knives, but forks?? Whatever.” He laughed at that, the meal times were actually the only parts he found amusing, just from how weird it was.  
  
Pyro sat up suddenly and contemplated Dinnerbone for a long moment.  
  
“Do you know what strip searches3 are?”  
  
“Uuuuh, kind of…?” Well, he did kind of know, and what he did know, he didn’t like.  
  
“Yeaaaah, it was disturbing. They did that on intake and then they kind of…rotated through the population there, one group per day, but the groups would change, so like, I was told you’d get searched roughly every five days or so. Which was accurate, it happened on intake and then once again when I was there.” He flopped back down onto the bed with that.   
  
“It was stupid, so stupid. Hated it. And the fucking showers…turn them on and throw you in, no control on the temp or anything at all, get washed as fast as you could. No control over anything at all there, but that was among the more annoying things.” He sighed. And that would be one of the reasons why he always had the temp so high up when he showered. Because he could control it, and he could feel the heat, and it was that hot because he controlled it.  
  
He sighed softly to himself, he was probably boring Dinnerbone with all this, but…he actually felt better telling him, someone else knew now, he wasn’t as alone.  
  
“A week. They took me there Tuesday morning, and I was release Wednesday morning. _He_ took me home. _Him_ not as a father, but as _Him_.” He rolled his head side to side quickly, he wasn’t sure if that made sense.  
  
“Someone, someone, one of the guards, they figured out who my dad was. Of course they did, I had the military I.D. with me, of course. And they finally, finally called him. Told him to come get me. But not as a father to come get his kid released, noooooo. They had him come as a soldier, take me into his custody. Practically, I think he released me when we got home, but I don’t actually know, and I don’t really want to ask him, cause if I’m wrong…” He didn’t want to finish that sentence. If he was wrong, and he pissed off da, then he’d probably be interned again, most likely. And that was a real bad thing.  
  
“I think, to be honest, that was the first time I was ever really scared of him. Hardly ever saw him in uniform; he normally would change when he got close to the base. But then, then? He was all…dressed up, very army, and it was just…he had this really…dead expression. Flat and very far away, and it was just…he looked like the soldiers that broke down the door, just so much. And I was scared. They dragged me into the first room they had taken me to, and searched me again, and then gave me my clothes back, um um, they had had us in prison clothes, I mean, and I got my normal clothes back, and then they chained me up again, like they did when they broke down the door and dragged me there, and they shoved me at _him_ and he took me home. Didn’t talk at all the entire way home, nor when we got home and he unchained me. He just…lead me back to my room, unchained me, closed the door, and left. He came back at three thirty and we had gotten home at nine in the morning. I think he must have had second shift or something, and had gone and got me, dropped me at home, and gone back to…work. He just looked very…depressed…when he got back. Not angry, like I was expecting…and he came and brought me into the kitchen and feed me and just kind of…watched me. Didn’t say anything. And then I went back to my room and slept. And he came and got me for dinner, and that’s the first time he spoke.” He rolled his head again, trying to get comfortable. Staying in any position for too long had disadvantages, of course.   
  
“He asked me if I was okay. And I just…stared at the food and didn’t say anything. He asked again, and I shook my head no. Didn’t want to talk. He didn’t ask again, at least not that night. Kept trying to get me to talk to him, about what happened. Only told him they came, broke the door, and took us away. Didn’t want to talk about anything else. When ma came home, I cried and clamped on to her, but I only told her I hated it.”   
  
He sat up and stretched, before leaning against the backboard of the bed, so he could look more at Dinnerbone.  
  
“You’re the first person I’ve talked to about that, actually. Ma said she’d look for a therapist, but we can’t find one. I know I shouldn’t, like, burden you with this stuff, but, well…I don’t know what else to do, really.”  
  
“It’s…its okay Pyro, I said you can talk to me, and I meant it.” His head might be spinning from what he was just told, but he damn well meant what he had said.  
  
“Yeah. Can we talk more later? I think we both need a break now. And I kinda…um…could I have another hug, please?”  
  
“Oh! Sure!” Dinnerbone stood up and walked over to the bed and waited for Pyro to stand up on his own. Pyro did so slowly, making sure to not get dizzy from the rather sudden standing and proceeded to immediately hug Dinnerbone very heavily. He sighed softly again.  
  
“I really am sorry for making you listen to me complaining, but it _does_ make me feel better, I’m sorry.”  
  
“Hey, there’s no need to be sorry, I don’t mind. And you need it, after all.”  
  
Pyro nodded slowly before letting Dinnerbone go.   
  
“I suppose so. Thanks. Um…do you think dinner is ready?  
  
“Probably, I think I smell food now.”  
  
Pyro nodded again before heading to the door to go to dinner. Dinnerbone shrugged softly to himself and followed Pyro out to the dining room where Millbee and Baj were both waiting for them to join them.  
  
Dinnerbone wasn’t sure what was going to happen from now on, but hell, at least Pyro was talking. It might only be to him, but that was a good start, he though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes, Translations, etc
> 
> 1 Apparently you call priests Father. At least, that is what I’ve gathered is done for Roman Catholic priests.
> 
> 2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armagh_Women%27s_Prison a prison in Northern Ireland.
> 
> 3http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strip_search


	27. Chapter Twenty Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings- Mentions of Violence

Dinnerbone eat silently, trying to process what he had just been told. And Pyro had said, while they were walking to the dining room, he had wanted to talk more after dinner. More? What more could there be? That was just…he wasn’t sure what more there could be, but that it probably wasn’t good.  
  
However, if this helped him…well then…he’d just learn to deal with it. It was only for another two weeks, after all. And maybe they’d get to visit with him more now that they had done so once, that would be nice.  
  
\-----  
  
Pyro stared up at the ceiling of the bedroom for the second time that day. He and Dinnerbone had gone back to the guest bedroom after dinner to talk some more. He felt kind of bad, talking this much to Dinnerbone, but it did seem to help, at least a little, and Dinnerbone himself seemed well, if not _okay_ then at least willing to listen.   
  
“Dinnerbooooone?”   
  
He thought that Dinnerbone’s name sounded far more amusing when said that way. That and it made it sound like Deadbones’ name, almost. That made him wonder, how _was_ Deadbones doing, anyways? Eh, he could message him tomorrow.  
  
“What?”  
  
“I really don’t want to be annoying you by talking so much, you know?”  
  
“Pyro…I said like, three times now, that you’re not annoying me, its fine. You wanna talk, talk. You don’t wanna talk, don’t talk; I’ll just…sit here and play with my phone or something until you decide what you wanna do. It’s fine!”   
  
Pyro blinked at that and mumbled softly to himself.  
  
“Not talking is…easier. Or makes more sense, rather. You don’t talk to outsiders…but, well. You aren’t…I mean, you are…but you aren’t…you’re family. Which makes you not an outsider, even though you are, I mean, you’re…yeah. But not talking…that doesn’t seem to have helped me, at least not here. And you’ll listen, so…and besides, I’ll go home in what, two weeks? And then you can forget about what I’ve said, and I can find a proper therapist, and yeah.”  
  
He sighed again. Talking might be good, but that didn’t make it easy. And learning to not talk around something was even more difficult.  
  
“Right. So. Let’s talk about something different, then. Erm. Hey, you don’t really know much about my ma’s side of the family, right?” Pyro looked up expectantly at Dinnerbone, awaiting the answer.  
  
“Um…yeah. I mean, honestly, we didn’t even know much about you until you showed up, just that you existed from Tom, etc etc.”  
  
“Oh…huh. Da would talk about Baj sometimes, he mentioned he had two kids, but not that often. He seemed…amused…about it, for some reason.”  
  
“Oh, weird.”  
  
“Yeah. But in any case, you’re my only cousins on Tom’s side, right? But I have a bunch of cousins from ma. I mean, well…she’s one of eleven kids…so. I think most of them have, like, three or four kids themselves, not anywhere near eleven, but still. Hell, I only met them all once, and I think a few might have had more kids since then…” He shrugged slightly before continuing to talk.  
  
“Which makes it slightly strange to be an only kid. Mind you, da probably shouldn’t have, ummmm, slept…with her…in the first place, but still. Course, that whole thing is just…bleh. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t meant to hear what I’ve heard, though.” Pyro laughed slightly at that, he found it amusing. Pausing a moment to compose himself, he continued.  
  
“See, da’s military, you know that. But they’re all taught to never, eh…sleep…with the locals, you know, since you can’t tell if the locals are nationalist or not, you know, if they’re a honeytrap, basically. Which, um, apparently ma was. At least according to two of her brothers.”  
  
Dinnerbone interjected for a brief moment.  
  
“Your mom was a…honeytrap…what? What the what? The hell? What? How? Why? How are they even still married? What? Just…what?”  
  
“I was getting to that, damn it! According to my uncles, she was out, scouting. She and her partner, spotter, actually, they’d been out shooting earlier, but they had stopped by a mixed bar, after they had dropped off the rifles, and were there taking a break, and scouting more for info, rather than, you know, places to shoot from. And…da was there, fresh from the base. He wasn’t really _with_ the other soldiers, just kinda, off by himself. But he was rather obviously military, apparently. I don’t know what that means, though. And she…got him alone, and…yeah. My uncles are of the opinion that him ‘sleeping’ with her was one thing, but apparently, he talked, pillow talk? Yeah. About his unit, etc etc, the type of things they, um, the volunteers, I mean, the type of stuff they look for. And boom, lost most of his clearance, and so on. And then the supreme unluckiness, that that night resulted in me.”  
  
“Uh, that’s soooo not the type of stuff you should have been hearing…”  
  
“I think I got lost in the noise, at least partly. And they thought I was asleep. But yeah. As to why they’re still married? No idea, but I know ma won’t get divorced, and I don’t know if they’d qualify for an, an…an annulment? Yeah. Course, it doesn’t help that when seanathair…ah, grandfather, I mean…when he apparently called da over to his house and pulled an armalite1 on him, demanded that he marry ma, since he had, you know, and me, yeah. So, I don’t know, maybe he’s afraid of what grandfather would do if he tried to get divorced or what have you.”  
  
“Uh…your family sounds…interesting…you sure they never taught you how to make bombs, eh?”  
  
Pyro blinked at that and sat up and laughed before flopping back down again.  
  
“Naw. I can make petrol bombs, but I think pretty much anyone can do that. Or anyone living at home, I mean. Other than that, no. There was something about fertilizer and coffee grinders2 but…no idea how that works. I know you can get arrested for having fertilizer if you don’t have documents saying it’s for your work, though. Which is amusing. I mean, I’ve carried ammo around before without an issue. Course, I was going to a shooting range at the time…that was a lot of fun, but then…grandmother…told grandfather he wasn’t supposed to take me there, and that ma would be right sore with him if he kept that up. Made me sad, it was fun, I wanted to go back, damn it!”  
  
“Heh, yeah, shooting ranges can be fun, went to one when I was working on some computer stuff that I needed to see the physics for the guns first-hand for, it was pretty cool. I bought the ammo there, though, and rented a gun.”  
  
“Ah, we brought our own stuff; don’t know where the rifle came from, actually.” He laughed softly before continuing to talk.  
  
“I mean, it would be kinda odd to walk around carrying a rifle, after all. Well, for a kid to carrying one, yeah. But, so, no. I don’t know how to make bombs or anything like that. I stick to protests and stuff like that. I don’t want to…the thought of hurting or killing people is just…stupid, and besides on a more selfish note, I run the risk of hurting da, and that’s just…” He sighed. He wasn’t really certain where he lay on nationalism verse unionism.  
  
“It’s just…my family wants Northern Ireland to become part of the Republic. I just want it to be peaceful, though. But I have this…thought…that if I said that, that they’d consider me to be either a unionist, which isn’t the case, a traitor which is also not really what I want, or an idiotic pacifist, which is, I suppose, possible.”  
  
“Can’t you just be…neutral?”  
  
“I’d like to be! At least until I’ve learned more so I can make a decision, but nooooo, can’t be neutral, not at home.”  
  
“Why not?”  
  
“Cause…everything is us vs them. I don’t know why, it’s just how it is.” He sighed before continuing.  
  
“I mean, if it was possible to be peaceful and part of the Republic, that would be ideal. But we’d have to; somehow, convince the unionists that it would be in their best interests. And I’m not sure how to do that!” Pyro yawned, it was starting to get late. Maybe he oughta change the topic to something less depressing before he went to slept, hm.  
  
“Hey, Dinnerbone?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Did you know, your name sounds like Deadbones?”  
  
“Who or what is that, and why are you even…?”  
  
“Tired. Subject change. I can do that, right? Right. But yeah. He’s someone I know from home. I’d been trying to remember why your name was so familiar, and I remember now.”  
  
“So, uh, what’s he like, then?”  
  
“He’s a pretty cool guy. His family was from the Republic, but he was born in Belfast. Goes to school with me, but does a lot of stuff on-line. Gets to fly to cool places.”  
  
“Oh, sounds neat.” Dinnerbone yawned heavily.  
  
“Um, look, we can talk more tomorrow, if you want?”  
  
“Sure. Goodnight, Dinnerbone.”  
  
“Goodnight, Pyro.” Dinnerbone got up at that point and left the room, making sure to close the door behind him.  
  
\-----  
  
BTC sighed softly.  
  
“Look. You’re the liaison between the base and the locals, right? Particularly with the local school?”  
  
“BTC…you know that already, I was the one who approached you about speaking at the school. Which could have gone better, but what-ever. You good, or do you serious not remember, man?”  
  
“I…been a bit distracted. Like, you’d know how to talk to kids, right? Like, ummm, better than how it went with the school when I did, yeah?” He cringed at that, but there was no avoiding it. That had just been entirely bad.  
  
The Captain just looked at him for a long moment before answering.  
  
“Yes. I’ve worked with the schools here and in the province. And given what happened, I suspect you’re asking about the kid who’s over here from there, yes?”  
  
Well, no-one ever said that Captains _couldn’t_ be perceptive, after all. Given that that little story had gone all over the base when it got brought home by one of the squaddies kids, after all.  
  
He fought back the urge to scowl at the correct guess. Wouldn’t win any points to be pissy at the person who was willing to help you.  
  
“Yes. Yes I am.”  
  
“Okay then. Look, he grew up in…well. Due to lack of better…terminology…he grew up in a war zone. Be glad that his first reaction was to run away from you, rather than start screaming or trying to throw anything at you, those are among the more common reactions.”  
  
“Throwing…?”  
  
“Yes…he was at school, it’s not like the classroom had rocks in it, you know.”  
  
Oh, oh!   
  
“Oooo, right.”  
  
“Right. So, he fairly obviously doesn’t want to talk to you. If you insist on continuing to try to do so, I’d suggest you’d only approach him if one of his…cousins, did you say? If one of them is with him. He’ll probably, _probably_ mind you, react better with them there.”  
  
“Better how?”  
  
“His reaction is to run, right? So if he thinks you’re going to prevent him from running, well, he’ll fall back to the other two options of throwing things or screaming.”  
  
Based on what he’d heard the next day at the school after the kid had ran, he thought he might be more the type to start screaming hysterically, actually. That combined with the fact that the kid has spoken even less than he normally did seemed to support that conclusion, but he was no detective.  
  
“Well, I mean, we’ve managed to have well, a single “civil” conversation, so…” BTC said, miming quote marks as he spoke.  
  
“You did? That’s great. No, really! I looked him up after you said what happened the day you went and spoke to the classes, it’s actually pretty damn good he was even willing to speak to you!”  
  
Now that…that surprised him.  
  
“What? I mean, I know the kid is was at a civil rights protest on the side of the protesters, and calls himself an Irish nationalist, but, um…not much else.”  
  
The Captain blinked at him for a moment.  
  
“Right. Riiiight. Uh-huh. His mother is a nationalist, obviously enough, but his dad is military. Our military, don’t even ask that. But more to it than that, I mean. Apparently, or so my sources tell me, he was temporarily interned when he was twelve. For about a week, before someone over there was arsed to check his age and who his parents were. Sooo…kinda surprised he talked to you, the sources also said he pretty much lost all willingness to speak to soldiers other than his dad at that point. Well, speak to them any more than absolutely necessary, I mean.”  
  
“That’s…that’s understandable, I suppose.”  
  
“Very. So, really now. Be careful with what you do. And seriously. If he looks like he’ll freak out again, try to…not push the issue, I don’t want to be getting any more calls from concerned class-mates of his, really.”  
  
“Of course, sir. That would be…bad.”  
  
“Don’t mess with him. Really.”  
  
“I…yes, sir. I’ll remember that.”  
  
“Mhm.” With that, the Captain turned and left to go do whatever it was that Captains around here did, BTC thought to himself. What did they do? Well, currently, apparently field calls from people pissed about BTC, which just sucked. He had never had anyone pissed about his behavior when he was in the province, or rather, anyone who wasn’t already pissed at the world.  
  
He wondered what tomorrow would bring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes, Translations, etc.
> 
> 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArmaLite A type of gun.
> 
> 2 Yes, apparently, some ‘recipes’ call for fertilizer and a coffee grinder. You grind up the fertilizer…beyond that, no idea. It gets mentioned in some songs.


	28. Interlude, Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FLUFFY BS ABOUT CATS. 
> 
> As a cutesy thing to distract from the violence
> 
> Also, BTC has (had?) cats. These are them.

Two tortoiseshell cats rolled around happily on the floor. Their own had left for work and left them, as he was wont to do, to their own devices. This pleased them quite well, in fact.  
  
“You know, he’s been quite grumpy lately.”  
  
“He’s been grumpy ever since he was transferred here, away from my home.”  
  
“We’re cats. Our home is wherever we want it to be.”  
  
“You know what I meant.”  
  
The smaller of the two appeared to laugh at the larger one, before moving to re-join the sunbeam.  
  
“You know what annoys me?”  
  
“No, I’m sure you’ll tell me, though.”  
  
“Ai. It annoys me that he calls both of us blob cat. It’s not our names! And we have different markings!”  
  
“Sure, but getting him to call us by our names is probably not going to happen.”  
  
“Why not? You have a good name, Susan is a good name!”  
  
“I was more referring to your name. Your parents named you Cailín Álainn.”  
  
“Well…yah. Because I am!”  
  
“It’s Irish.”  
  
“I was born behind a dumpster in Derry, what did you think my name was gonna be?”  
  
“Yes well.”  
  
The larger cat shrugged and gamboled off for some water before returning to the sunbeam where the smaller one was.  
  
“He only took you cause you were tiny and adorable and lost.”  
  
“Yes, yes, and because your sister had…passed…not long before.”  
  
The smaller one blinked as their owner returned, looking even more grumpy. They listened as he bitched about fenian bastards and about meeting with them and how he didn’t even know what he was called, but that leathcheann didn’t sound like a good thing to be called.  
  
“Hrm.”  
  
“What is it, new blob?”  
  
“That’s a stupid way to refer to ourselves. And I want to know why some Irish kid was calling him an idiot.”  
  
The bigger cat blinked, got up, and smacked the smaller one very hard, very suddenly, ignoring how their owner shouted at them to play nice.  
  
“Owe! What the hell was that for?”   
  
“Are you telling me you speak Irish, you jerk?”  
  
The smaller cat blinked up and laughed.  
  
“Well…yes. The local kids were raising me, until Mister grumpy appeared and decided to ‘rescue’ me. But it’s pointless, Susan. He doesn’t understand us, it’s not like we can tell him that.”  
  
“Oh….well…sure…”  
  
The smaller one shrugged and got up, wandering off to where BTC was getting ready for bed.  
  
“Oh, hello blob! You can stay, but don’t be smacking your brother, damn it!”  
  
“He hit me, and yes.”  
  
“Talkative tonight, are we?”  
  
“You really are a leathcheann, aren’t you.”  
  
“Awww, adorable!”  
  
The smaller cat snickered and snuggled up to BTC as he fell asleep, still muttering about strange Irish kids and their manner of speaking.


	29. Chapter Twenty Three

Two weeks. Well, under two weeks, he’d be going home on Saturday. Home. Home sounded awesome.  
  
For sure, he’d miss his cousins and uncle, but still. Hm. Maybe he could convince da to have to them come over and visit, summer break wasn’t too long, and they could come over before July…  
  
If he was being honest with himself, he’d almost been hoping to have still been here through July, it would have made a very nice break, a year without July.  
  
It sounded nice to even say. A year with no July. What would that be like? To have peace, all the time? To not spend spring waiting for summer and riots? Sure, riots could and did happen at any time, but this…this you knew, and expected. It was…unsettling, waiting for them to kick off. But to not have that? What was that like?  
  
Well, da had said they’d talk about how it went here when he got back home, and that if ma agreed, he or they might be able to spend some of his summer holidays with his uncle. And if that was the case, then he’d get to know, first hand even, what a year without a July was like.  
  
\-----  
  
Lasairfhíona sat in her room in the hospital, pondering what she and Tom had just been talking about. He’d arrive in a week and a half, well, a week, but half was lost to his processing, so.  
  
He had suggested that, given that she was still quite weak, and that well, his brother _had_ already suggested it…perhaps she and Pyro could go visit him for the summer, as Pyro would be getting back right when his school finished testing, so might as well stay with Baj and start back at the school in fall, he had plenty of worksheets and the like…  
  
Truth be told, she had always somewhat prided herself for having travelled, but having never been to England itself. It was childish, sure, but…she didn’t really _want_ to start seeing things in more shades of grey, being married to an English soldier had done more than enough to that. She’d even stopped being active (though if she told the truth, that was from when Pyro was five and he’d found some of her weapons) and had joined the political side of things. Of course, everyone said that Sinn Féin1 was just the political arm of the IRA and that when they went to talk to the War Council2, that the politicians could just go look in the mirrors. She didn’t doubt that was true at the higher levels, but local levels? Not as much.  
  
Still, if Tom thought it would help Pyro and herself…  
  
\-----  
  
Baj pondered what he’d been talking to his brother about. He knew that it would be good for Paul to be here for the summer, and with his mother, ah…Lassy…still so weak, he figured to offer to their whole family to stay the summer. Well, Tom would be mostly on the local base, but still. Something about if Lassy and Pyro stayed with Baj, then Tom could be assigned to the local base here, and it somehow would ‘qualify’ as him having been out of the province long enough, so when they returned at the end of August, Tom would be put back at the end of the cycle to rotate out. He had no idea how that worked, but it sounded like Tom’s Lieutenant was quite well versed in creatively writing reports to get things done, and that the lieutenant had been happy with this offer, so.  
  
It wasn’t like it was an imposition, either. The neighbours normally went to Mallorca for the summer and paid Baj to watch the place. This year they were gonna have Max watch it, but they were fine with having Baj’s sister-in-law and her son stay there, as long as the house came out the other side intact.  
  
The only he had to do now was wait for Paul to return home, them to discuss it, and then Tom would call him, probably that Sunday, since Paul was leaving insanely early on Saturday.   
  
Apparently there had been problems with army planes being shot at with RPGs3 and possibly even SAMs4, so they were flying civilian crafts really early (and the army crafts in late evening), on the assumption that the IRA wouldn’t be arsed to wake up early enough to attack them. Baj kinda doubts the IRA would intentionally attack a civilian craft, but still. Also, it made more sense to him to have it the other way around, but…the army had never really been much for logic in this regard.  
  
\-----  
  
“Millbee?”  
  
“What Dinnerbone?”  
  
“Do you think we could convince dad and Uncle Tom to let Pyro stay for the summer?”  
  
“…He has an airplane ticket home already.”  
  
“Yeah, I mean, go, finish his tests or whatever, and come back? He did say he was gonna see if Pyro could visit us some summer, why not this one?”  
  
“Well, we can ask him in the morning about it. There are probably things we don’t know.”  
  
“There are always things we aren’t told. Particularly with Pyro, it seems.”  
  
“Yeah, well…good night, Dinnerbone.”  
  
“Good night, Millbee.”  
  
\-----  
  
BTC sighed softly to himself. It was Friday now, and Connolly had spent most of the week carefully avoiding BTC, while looking like he was doing no such thing. It was remarkably frustrating. He’d question how a 14 year old kid had learned to do that, but that was pointless. He obviously **had** learned it from _somewhere_ so that was it.   
  
However. BTC was, quite simply **better** than any jump up native kid, regardless of if he’d been trained or not. And he was damn well going to talk to him some more, whether or not he liked it. Wait. Hadn’t he promised his lieutenant that he’d do no such thing? Screw that, he wanted to talk to him, it might even be a good thing, sway the kid to the proper side, you know? He was sure that his lieutenant would agree that getting and keeping the native on their side was more important than him possibly hurting the kid’s feelings or something equally stupid.  
  
\-----  
  
Pyro sighed softly to himself. He had finished talking to both his da and Dinnerbone, not long ago. Talking with his dad was good, it sounded like they might get to be here for the summer, though he still had to go back home first. As to Dinnerbone, well.   
  
BTC had, in fact, talked to him again. Very annoying. He wanted to talk to him again on Saturday, which is why he had been talking to Dinnerbone. He knew he was relying on him a bit too much, but…he wasn’t sure why the hell BTC still wanted to talk to him, so better take Dinnerbone along, for safety.  
  
\-----  
  
Dinnerbone had agreed, readily enough. He was also curious as to why the hell BTC still wanted to speak to Pyro, and was hoping it was for harmless reasons, such as BTC honestly wanting to know what it was like to grow up on the other side, or what have you. He didn’t hold out much hope for this, though, but didn’t really want to tell Pyro that, since he probably already figured that out.  
  
He sighed as he got ready for bed, mumbling to himself.   
  
Whatever it was that this soldier wanted to talk about, they’d find out tomorrow at the park.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes, etc.
> 
> 1 A political party http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinn_F%C3%A9in
> 
> 2 The IRA’s war council, she means.
> 
> 3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Propelled_Grenade
> 
> 4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface-to-air_missile


	30. Interlude, Six

Baj yawned as he watched Paul and Nathan head off to the park for the second time since Paul had come to stay with them. He had been wondering just how much Paul knew about how he, well…came to be. It wasn’t his place to explain it, of course not. And besides, he only knew half the story, after all. Still it amused him; it was a fine piece of karma, biting his brother in the ass.  
  
He grinned as he poured himself some more coffee, thinking back to that little announcement and what had come before.  
  
What had come before wasn’t as nearly as amusing for him, of course.  
  
He knew he had a child, from Karen. Well, technically, Caron1, but that wasn’t important. Karen was her name as much as Caron. Technically, Karen was her birth name, after all. It was after she had moved to Wales that she took the name Caron. But in any case, she had just given birth. To his son. She had decided to keep custody, and he didn’t want to fight her for it. Given that he hadn’t known she was pregnant until the last month of it…besides, the agreement was that all he had to do was call and come see his son whenever he wanted to.   
  
It had been working out quite well.   
  
Up until Emma had called him. And then he had to call his family, again. And then Tom laughed at him. Again.   
  
He could hear, clearly, what Tom had said then.  
  
“Really now, Baj. Two kids, with two different women? Are you going to be having any more, hmmm?”  
  
“NO GOD DAMN IT! There is not going to be any more kids! I am getting it freaking solved this weekend!”  
  
Tom had left it at that, and they had begun to patch things back up when a few months later, Baj got a very frantic phone call at noon. Most people would think you’d get frantic calls at midnight or two am or something, but with Tom, getting a call at noon was far more panic inducing than one at night. He almost always worked days, and rarely called on his days off, so…  
  
“Baj! Baj! Baj Baj Baj! Badger!”  
  
“What the hell, what are you trying to say?”  
  
“Baj!”  
  
“I am Baj. And you are my brother, Tom. So, really, breathe and tell me what’s wrong”  
  
“I shouldn’t have laughed at you!”  
  
“Uh…duh…but what exactly…”  
  
“She’s pregnant!”  
  
Baj had dropped the phone at that point.  
  
“What the F…who is she??”  
  
“Ummmmmmm. Well. That’s um.”  
  
Baj paused and contemplated the reasons for his brother’s sudden reticence.  
  
“Tom…you _just_ got to the province…please tell me you didn’t do something _that_ stupid in your first week there…”  
  
“Maaaaaaybeeeeee?”  
  
“Tom…”  
  
“Well, karma. So, yes.”  
  
Baj rubbed his forehead, tiredly. It was noon, and just talking to his brother was making him exhausted.   
  
“Tom, I have a small baby that I am trying to care for. He is staring at the phone and gurgling. Can you please get to the point?”  
  
“Right. So, she’s…pregnant. And it’s mine; did you know you can do in vitro blood testing now? You can. Um…Baj…you’re gonna get a wedding invitation in the mail, pretty soon. Well, soon by Royal Mail standards.”  
  
For the second time that day, Baj dropped the phone on the counter, causing baby Nathan to start crying again.  
  
“Man, what? Did her father show up and pull a shot gun on you, you weirdo?”  
  
The long pause told him, yes, yes he did.  
  
“What the…really? He really…Please tell me she’s a unionist.”  
  
“Sorry Baj, but…”  
  
“Dear lord…okay, just how badly did you fuck up?”  
  
“Well. Um. I’m stuck on base until I rotate out, and when I rotate back, I’m under supervision…oh. And I’ve got no security clearance any more. Also, I’m getting married, cause, well…yeah. Don’t worry, I proposed all proper like, she said yes. I told mum and dad, they already got the letter, but yours hasn’t come, because I’d assume you’d call…”  
  
“Right. What’s her name, Tom, I’d like to know before I end up flying to god knows where with a baby.”  
  
“Oh! Her name is Lasairfhíona Ó Conghaile.”  
  
Baj stared at the phone, willing his brother to make sense.  
  
“Uuuuu, Lassy Connelly, rather. And the wedding is happening in Edinburgh, not here.”  
  
What?  
  
“What?”  
  
“Special dispensation, because of the circumstances. Make it easier for mom and dad and well…you and the baby…to get there, without as much security. And she liked Edinburgh better than Cardiff.”  
  
“Okay then. Can I say it now?”  
  
A long sigh came from the phone. “Fine.”  
  
“I told you so! I told you that laughing at me would come right back around to you! I told you!”  
  
“Yes. Look, I’ll talk more tomorrow; right now I’m due to get yelled at by the lieutenant again.”  
  
“Right. Have a…tolerable…day then, Tom.”  
  
“Same to you, Baj.”  
  
Baj blinked, shaking his head from the memory.  
  
The wedding was very…unique. That was the most polite term he could think of. He still wasn’t sure how his brother’s wife had managed to get that many of her family through security, and he really didn’t want to know, not anymore. There was Latin, and Gaelic, and things in knotwork form. Most of it was in English, though. The ceremony itself was very simple, and very fast. She had worn a cream color dress. Baj had almost laughed at that, but his sister and mother looked like they’d stab him if he did. The reception, on the other hand…it was about the time that the bride’s family had taken over the music system that Baj had started to drink in a right hurry, and then...luckily, they had a daycare for children, but…he begged out, grabbed Nathan, and holed up in his hotel room. The only redeeming thing about that night was that none of them had gotten arrested, somehow. He didn’t even know you could get midnight flights to Belfast from Edinburgh, but apparently, you could. And they’d take drunken idiots, as well.  
  
\-----  
  
He stared at the park, contemplating. This was the second time they’d gone to the park. You’d have thought that her son would have noticed him by now; the boy had met him before, after all. But he was preoccupied, it wasn’t his fault.  
  
He looked down at his case. It felt very…morbid…to be carrying this, when he was just watching over his old sniper’s son. Just keeping an eye, no need for the case. But she had insisted he stay safe…course, this _was_ England, so better safe than sorry, but still. He was better at watching, anyways. The case stayed at the hotel. He only took the short range and midrange stuff. Anything else for him was pointless.  
  
The man sighed softly. You’d think they’d be able to tell an Irish accent from a Scottish one at this point, but when you say you’re from Edinburgh, they tend to believe you, unless you slip up and speak Irish.   
  
Lasairfhíona, why? What made you do it? There are so many different ways to get information; there was no need for that risk. A child is a minor one, he could have been ill for all you knew.  
  
He grimaced. No, he cared for her, but not in that way. She was the best damned sniper he’d met in a long while, and had been active for far longer than most. He had wondered why she had started so young, and how command had agreed to letting someone so young do what she did, but he knew he wouldn’t get that information. Not today, and probably not ever.  
  
She had made the transition from IRA to Sinn Féin quite smoothly. He personally thought she’d been planning it since before she’d even taken up a gun, but who was he to say that? He had…tried…but that was not his world. He might have survived internment, but he…was no longer fit for civilized society. He’d already told her that when they got their peace, that he wanted her to be the one to…remove…him. He couldn’t function in that society. Neither could the solider he was currently watching, though. It was bizarre, to be watching an English soldier, and to not be getting ready to fire. He was close enough to hear them, not difficult in this park. He’d damn near called Lasairfhíona after that first meeting of theirs. But no. He was on radio silence, and wasn’t to call unless something major occurred.   
  
And he was damn well to not be _causing_ anything major. He sighed. It had been a while now, and he just wanted to go home, tell Lasairfhíona what he saw (and maybe heard, but maybe not) and then stay the hell away from England.   
  
He watched and listened to the argument and was surprised that they managed to keep their voices low enough to not attract much attention. Then again, one was an active duty soldier, and one was the son of, well, an army man and a sniper. They should both know enough to avoid attracting too much attention, particularly the boy, here in England.  
  
The man sighed as he sat in the hotel room. Being by himself, he had to hope that the kid would stay inside come night fall. Course, the kid _should_ be operating under the assumption that there is a curfew here, making it easier on him, but still.  
  
He still didn’t know why Lasairfhíona had slept with the bastard.  
  
They’d been out. Did the bastard know she’d been shooting his colleagues not even an hour before she had slept with him? That she had two more confirmed kills from that day?   
  
Command had radioed them, told to cut out and return, that there was fog rolling in, making it worthless. They’d returned, ditched the guns, and changed. He’d wanted a drink, suggested they go to the local bar, one that was good for info. She’d agreed readily enough, she rarely drank, but…the only thing she ever said about what she did was that she hated that everyone was so young. And that day was no exception.  
  
She had been…calm, contemplative, at the bar. She saw him, and signaled what she was planning. He watched as she…spun a web, caught the poor bastard in it. He wondered what she thought as she did so. They left…there were rooms for…rent…behind the bar. Pay by the hour, you know the sort. She got her money’s worth, or so he thought, it was almost an hour before they returned. She smiled at him, and laughed. Said something to him. Probably that if he wanted to contact her, the bartender would know how to. Very true. The bartender would also be pissed, but she didn’t really seem to care.  
  
It had been two weeks. She was very distant. She finally told him that she had sent a letter. She knew who he was, he had been very…un-careful…with what he had said that night. She told him then what was wrong. Why she was so distant, why she had hardly been taking any assignments. He agreed to go with her, but to stay in the next room over. Less obvious that he was there.  
  
The poor man took it well enough, though better when they went to the clinic and had the blood testing done.   
  
Poor…man. Why…? Sympathy for the devil is not something a spotter or a sniper ever wants.   
He sighed and yawned, curled back up in the bed in the hotel room. One week. One more freaking week, and he’d be home. He even had tickets for the same flight as Paul, ha! Well, that might actually be bad, but whatever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 Caron is a Welsh name that is both male and female. She was calling herself Karen, though.


	31. Chapter Twenty Four

Dinnerbone yawned as they once more sat in the gazebo. Pyro was looking antsy, and Dinnerbone didn’t really like the probability of this going well. Pyro only had a week left here, with that little time he might not hold his tongue if the soldier said something…unfortunate. And given what the solider had _been_ saying, that seemed close to a forgone conclusion.  
  
He knew that the world wasn’t as nice of a place he had hoped, but the more time he spent with Pyro, the more, well, _upset_ at the whole situation he got. The idea of taking up arms against ones country had made no sense, but now, he could almost see why you’d feel like it was the last option available to you. Particularly if you didn’t see the country you were fighting against as your own.  
  
\-----  
  
BTC sighed as he made his way to the park and the gazebo for the second time. While what he hoped to accomplish today was still fairly…nebulous, he was mostly hoping to convince the native kid that BTC and his people were in the right, and that he should side with them. What siding with BTC meant and what that would mean for the kid, he didn’t really know, nor care all that much about. BTC was and his country was, in the right, and therefore, the kid should agree with him.  
  
The lieutenant had put him a bad mood this morning, though. He’d told him again to leave the native alone. It honestly made no sense though. The lieutenant _must_ want the native on their side, right? So why would he tell him to stay away from him? No, the lieutenant must have meant something else, like make sure the kid understands him properly, or something.   
  
He shook his head to clear it as he walked up to the gazebo where the native and his cousin were already sitting. There were a few other people around, but only one in any near proximity. Hn. Might have to remember to stay quiet so that man wouldn’t hear anything that needs to stay…quiet.  
  
\-----  
  
Pyro watched as the soldier walked up to the gazebo and sat down.  
  
“Hello Connolly.”  
  
“Hello.”  
  
BTC blinked at him for a moment, seeming to not know how to continue the conversation.  
  
“So, um, how are you doing?”  
  
Pyro blinked at him slowly.   
  
“I’m fine. I’m going home to Ireland soon, and then you’ll probably never have to see me again.” He said, speaking fairly blandly. He sound more amused than annoyed, though. Of course, it also wasn’t true, he was planning on trying to visit come this summer, but hell, he didn’t need to mention that now.  
  
“Oh? You’re going to the province, then?”  
  
He stared at BTC for a long moment. What the…are you that restrained by your blinders that you can’t even try to see past them?  
  
“I’m going home to Ireland, as I said.”  
  
“Which is the province.”  
  
Okay, seriously now. What are you even going for?  
  
“Which is Ireland. As I just said.”  
  
“You’re from Belfast, which is in Northern Ireland. Which is the province.”  
  
Dinnerbone looked like he was going to have a minor seizure, but Pyro figured he’d be fine.  
  
“No. I’m from Belfast, which is in Ireland. And that is, as I said, Ireland.”  
  
The soldier blinked at him, looking very vexed.  
  
“No! Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, it’s not part of the republic, damn it! It might be on the same island, but they’re not the same thing! What the hell are they teaching you, even‽”  
  
Pyro stared at him and grimaced slightly at him.  
  
“They’re teaching me the truth, leathcheann tú.1 Ireland is a free republic and that means the whole damn thing, not just part of it.”  
  
“Ireland is a republic, yes. The province, however, is part of the United Kingdom. Sharing a name doesn’t make it automatically a part of something else!”  
  
“Why no, of course noooooot. It’s the whole shared history, language, ethnicity, and desire of the people that does that.”  
  
“You mean the fact that it was colonized by England and wants to remain in the United Kingdom, of course.”  
  
“You mean the Irishmen you’ve confused and confounded to the point that they identify with their oppressors, of course.”  
  
BTC blinked at him and ground his teeth.  
  
“No. No. You just aren’t. You have to. If the province could just understand that being part of the UK is good, god damn it. Why can’t you. Why…” BTC was brought up short by the sharp Hnnnnn sound that Pyro had made.  
  
“What is…why are you so interested in me, soldier? Why me? I am not the only Irishman around here, much less in this country, so why do you bother me, and not them? Or do you have a very busy day? **NO**. Don’t bother answering, I’m not finished. I want you to bloody well leave me alone. You can’t even talk to me without trying to needle me, why don’t you just leave well enough alone and stop fecking bothering me! It’s only a week, I’m sure you can do that, at the very least!”  
  
BTC stared at him and started to stutter.  
  
“Well? Can you at least leave me alone for the week I have left here?”  
  
“I…fine. Just…fine. Whatever.” With that, BTC grumpily stomped out of the gazebo and away from them, leaving them once more alone.  
  
“Imeacht gan teacht ort.”2  
  
They stared at each other for a long moment.  
  
“I…really, really hope he does leave you alone…”  
  
“So do I, god damn it! Aaaah, let’s just go the hell home now.”  
  
Dinnerbone quickly packed everything back and they head home, Pyro still grumbling about how much of a bastard the solider was being.  
  
\-----  
  
Pyro yawned as he sat in his room, contemplating the day.  
  
He rather hoped that the soldier would leave things well enough alone, but the man was acting like a bull dog with a bone, not letting go for anything at all.  
  
And then too, was the issue of him…’seeing things’. Well. Not exactly. He knew what he saw or rather, _who_ he saw. Now, he wasn’t much one for conspiracies, but…  
  
Hadn’t his mother always told him _Once is interesting, twice a coincidence, and three times was enemy action_? And _he_ had said the same thing, the last time they met. And Pyro was entirely certain it was him, he’d met the man enough times before to recognize him.  
  
So then the question became, what the _hell_ was he doing here? And always nearby? So then the question was more one of, was he being watched? And who sent him? Was it máthair3 or was it…well, the War Council would have no reason to be watching him, right? Right? He was never certain who was and wasn’t watching, anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes, etc.
> 
> 1 You idiot.
> 
> 2 “May you leave without returning.” Or, in other words, go somewhere else and die.
> 
> 3 Mother


	32. Chapter Twenty Five

The lieutenant stared at the papers in his hands. They had an anonymous tip line, and well boy, it was being put to good use lately. He’d been putting off reading the transcripts, as he was fairly certain what, or rather _who_ they were about, but it was Sunday now, and he had to read this week’s batch before the new ones started in tomorrow. Or maybe tomorrow would be quiet? Ha! Not if his luck held up, not at all!  
  
Looking at them, he thought at least a few were from the same person, which he found interesting. The only tell of that was the way the person was speaking, and that the transcriber had noted on the second that the voice was familiar and by the third was referring to the speaker as being the same as the one on the previous notes. Going back over the last few weeks noted the same thing, and they all appeared to be the same person. However, they appeared about…a bit over a month ago, no more. Everything prior to that was normal. These, however were all about, pretty much, the one soldier. And the same (damned!) civilian as before, as well.  
He’d talk to Sergeant BTC, _again_ , and if he didn’t _get it_ at that point, he’d just, well…he’d keep in on base at that point. He didn’t _think_ that he’d be that damned stubborn to disobey a direct order, after all.   
  
As to the civilian…well.  
  
How should he approach that, exactly? He knew the kid, for he was a kid, wouldn’t like to see him. That much was clear from what he’d been able to learn.   
  
Thing was, it was clear from the transcripts, that the kid wouldn’t be here much long, and that the caller had way more information on the kid than he really should. And if the transcriber was correct, there was probably a half-way decent reason for that, namely, that the kid was important enough to be watched. And if you were watched by one, it would be…  
  
The lieutenant stared at the ceiling for a long moment, before collecting all the transcripts that mentioned the kid, and going back over them again.  
  
Two hours later and with a headache forming, he had confirmed his belief. The kid was being watched by at least three different people, and they were from what he thought was probably two different groups, at least. The kid, being a kid, was mostly ‘active’ during the same times, so those watching him would generally be on the same…schedule, as it were, so that wasn’t terribly surprising. What was more interesting was that the people seemed more…concerned than normal, particularly since one of them sounded rather like the MI51, and they normally didn’t care much about the Northern Irish that they over-saw. The third…well, it was a decent possibility that the lieutenant would be getting visited by the Intelligence Corps2, soon enough.   
  
\-----  
  
Pyro sighed. He’d been left alone, but that mostly served to give him the time to realize that yes, yes he was being watched. He wanted to approached him and ask him _why_ but that wouldn’t net him anything. And besides, he was pretty sure now that he was being watched by more than just his mother’s old spotter. That was…a less than pleasant realization. However, he only had another week here and then home. Well, and then talk and see if they’d come back for the summer.  
  
He blinked slightly. Why was he so concerned about being watched? He knew that they were occasionally put on surveillance back home, why not now? He would ignore it back home, of course, since trying to pay attention to too much just resulted in exhaustion. So many people watching others, it was like a massive, very messed-up, chess game. A bloody violent chess game. So maybe not so much like a game after all. Whatever.  
  
This week had been strange, anyways. Being talked…to, or was it _at_ by that soldier, BTC, was bad enough, but then, on Thursday, when he was walking home, by himself (as Dinnerbone and Millbee both had things to do after school that day), he’d been approached by a different soldier. This one, he’d thought, was higher rank, though he still wasn’t good at recognizing the insignias, not yet. He’d been understandably nervous when the soldier had approached; he only had his school id card with him, nothing else.  
  
Pyro yawned as he thought about how that encounter had gone.  
  
He’d been walking, minding his own, when he’d finally noticed that he was about to intersect with a soldier who was walking towards him. He’d stopped to let the solider either pass him or stop with him, as he expected him to do. He _had_ stopped in front of him, as he had feared he would. Stopping, he stood there quietly, keeping his hands in view. He was certainly not going to be the one to start talking first, no.  
  
The soldier had watched him, seeming to expect him to speak. When he hadn’t, the soldier had hmmmmed at him, at a moderate level.   
  
Pyro tilted his head slightly to the side and looked at the soldier and murmured “Hmmmm?” back at him.  
  
The soldier had blinked at him several times before speaking.  
  
“Would you happen to be Paul Connelly, from Belfast?”  
  
“I was born in f...Derry3, but yes, that is my name.”  
  
“Well, recently of Belfast, in any case?”  
  
He titled his head again at the soldier. What was he getting at?  
  
“Yes. We live there. I’m staying with my uncle here.”  
  
The soldier smiled at that, and Pyro blanched slightly. Soldiers smiling at what you said…rarely if ever a good thing. But this one looked almost confused when he noticed him paling.   
  
“Yes, yes, you’re who I was looking for…ahhhhh, no! Everything is fine.”  
  
Pyro continued to stare at him, rather too scared to move or say anything at all. He got his voice back quickly and asked very quietly, ”I only have my school id, I’m sorry…”  
  
“No, no, that’s fine, fine. You were talking to a sergeant; he’d have called himself BTC, yes?”  
  
“If by talked to, you mean he’s been…” Pyro stared blankly for a moment. “He’s been talking _at_ me, yes. Why?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to know why.  
  
“Ah, well, see, what I’ve been hearing is that he hasn’t been leaving you alone. Is that true?”  
  
“I…he…wasn’t…but he hasn’t come to find me since the last time, which was uh…last Saturday…”  
  
The lieutenant nodded at that, seeming to come to a decision.  
  
“Right then. Don’t worry, he won’t bother you anymore.”  
  
“Ah, thank you?”   
  
“Yes, well, he shouldn’t have…in any case, have a good day.”  
  
“Uh…you too?”  
  
At that, the lieutenant had turned and walked away, paying no more attention to Pyro. As soon as the lieutenant was far enough away for him to feel comfortable, he had bolted on home, not noticing the lieutenant stopping and watching him do so, shaking his head slightly at the sight.  
  
Pyro yawned again. Thinking about that incident…well the soldier had been right, thus far. But there was still a week left before he went home, or a bit under it. He shrugged to himself and finished getting ready for bed.  
  
\-----  
  
BTC stared at the ceiling of his room. He had his answers of what had happened that day, and it had been verified, albeit slightly…unscrupulously, having gotten the records of the kid’s injuries from the clinic, and checking out the grainy footage he’d gotten from a corner store from right after it had happened.   
  
So.  
  
Why couldn’t he let it go? Why couldn’t he leave the kid alone? He’d pushed enough that the lieutenant had finally, finally gotten pissed off enough to order him to remain on base. But still, he kept thinking and spinning and running it into the ground.  
  
What made him so interesting?   
  
He grumbled and kicked at the blankets.  
  
If he really couldn’t let this go, he could just send him mail, god damn it. He had the kid’s home address, the one in Belfast, for Christ’s sake. He nodded to himself. If he hadn’t found a way to distract himself by…Wednesday, then he’d start writing the kid, instead of this nonsense.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes, etc.
> 
> 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MI5
> 
> 2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_Corps_%28United_Kingdom%29
> 
> 3 He was about to say Free Derry, as (one of) the official name(s) of the city is LondonDerry. Nationalists rather prefer to call it Derry or Doire.


	33. Chapter Twenty Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ahahhaha, finally the last chapter.

Pyro stretched as he checked on his things again. It was Friday, the last day he was here. Just had to get through this day, and he’d be fine. Knock on wood.   
  
\-----  
  
Dinnerbone hurried around as he tried to organize everything they’d need for tomorrow morning. Or was that really just really late tonight? He knew in any case that he was going sleep after school and then probably just stay awake, if he could manage that.  
  
\-----  
  
Lasairfhíona sat waiting at the airport terminal with Tom, waiting for Pádraig to return home. His flight had left at what she considered an obscenely early hour, and he was set to arrive before even breakfast.  
  
Hm. Would he have even eaten yet?  
  
“Ah, we should probably buy food for him, what with it being almost bricfeasta.1”   
  
“Oh, right. I’ll go grab some, okay?”   
  
Well, she was stuck in the damned wheelchair, so it wasn’t like she’d be going anywhere fast. It was the only way the rehab place had even agreed to let her come. She looked up him rather blandly. “Where do you think I’d be going, hm?”  
  
Tom grinned before answering. “Knowing you, anywhere you’d want to go!”  
  
She snickered as he walked off to go grab some breakfast for the (eventual) three of them.  
  
 _Flight 782 from Heathrow is arriving at Gate 19 now. Disembarking will begin shortly._  
  
Aha! He’d be here soon! She’d have clapped, but that was still a bit of a tricky proposition.   
  
Tom arrived back right quick with the food.  
  
“You heard the announcement, I assume?”  
  
“Of course! How could I not, you parked me under the speaker!”  
  
\-----  
  
Tom watched as the people disembarked from the plane. Knowing their luck, Paul would have ended up at the back of the plane.  
  
He shook his head slightly as a small group passed. He could have _sworn_ he recognized one of them, that he’d seen the man before. But that wasn’t possible, was it?  
  
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lasairfhíona notice the same person that he had, and she looked almost…annoyed? He might have to ask about that when they got home, then. Well. If then…he might not like the answer. He was finding there were a lot of things he might not like the answers to, however, so.  
  
\-----  
  
“So, Paul, we’ll be taking your mother back to the rehab hospital and then be heading home.”  
  
Ah, damn. If he wanted to talk to her about her spotter having watched him, he’d have to do it in the car. Oh. And that meant he might be explaining what the hell that was about to da, then. Hmmmm.  
  
He shrugged slightly and helped push the wheelchair out to the car. The dissembling took a fair bit of time, mostly because they had to now figure out how to get it in the boot2 rather than in the back seat, seeing as there were now three people rather than just two. Before long, they got everything settled and started on their way.  
  
“Ah, mamaí?”  
  
“Ah, yes Pádraig, what is it?”  
  
He fidgeted slightly.  
  
“England was interesting…”  
  
“…yes…and…?”  
  
“I saw someone I’ve seen before, from here. Someone you know.”  
  
His mother stared straight ahead for a long moment before answering.  
  
“You probably did so, yes.”  
  
“Was…was I not supposed to see him?”  
  
“No, no you were not.”  
  
“Ahem, what exactly are we talking about here?”  
  
Both Pyro and Lasairfhíona winced when Tom asked that question.  
  
“Ah…”  
  
“No, let me.” Lasairfhíona cut in before Pyro could finish his statement.  
  
“I obviously couldn’t keep an eye on Pádraig on my own, and your brother would call you first, and then anything would make its way to me...so.” She sucked on her teeth for a moment before continuing.  
  
“Do you remember when we met? The…young man…that I entered the bar with, I mean?”  
  
“Vaguely, yes. Wasn’t he…” Tom became very interested in the road suddenly.  
  
“Wasn’t he…what?” She asked, sounding slightly dangerous.  
  
“Wasn’t he the one that was…sorry. The one you had in the other room after you sent me the letter about…”  
  
She blinked at him slowly.  
  
“Yes actually. Did you…?”  
  
“Not…exactly. I had a friend waiting downstairs if in case I didn’t…return.”  
  
“Oh.” She shook her head slightly to clear it.  
  
“Ah, well, yes, him. In any case, yes. He… as Pádraig can tell you, he was watching over our son for me.”  
  
Pyro visible relaxed at hearing that the man was there at his mother’s behalf.  
  
“Ah, what is it, Pádraig? Oh, you didn’t think that, did you‽”  
  
“He didn’t think…what?” This was looking to be a horrible idea, ask questions where people can’t escape from!  
  
“He…the man…let’s call him Brian, no I’m not sure if that’s his real name or not. He…we…we worked together. Before we two got together…don’t ask that, I can’t answer you that about after we met. We worked together. He…I called in for him, asked him to do me that favor. Pádraig...he...you thought that he was sent by...the people I use to work for, and that he still does work for...didn’t you?”  
  
“Yes mamaí, that’s what I had been afraid of, but I couldn’t exactly ask you that over the phone , now could I?”  
  
“I suppose not.”  
  
“Okay, I’m not even going to ask why on that. Just...ok. Look, Baj has offered for us to come back out in a few weeks for the summer, all three of us. We agreed that it sounded like a plan, but wanted to hear what you though, Paul.”  
  
“I...really like the idea, if we get to stay somewhere near Uncle Baj and my cousins.”  
  
“Yes, we...or...rather you and your mother would be staying in the house next door, they go on vacation and have said that you can housesit instead of Baj, basically.”  
  
“Where...where would you be, da?”  
  
“On the local base. It’d be like here, actually. My liutenant says it would help solve the _we need to rotate you out problem_ for a bit, actually.”  
  
“Oh. Um, need to tell you something when we get home.” Lasairfhíona looked slightly concerned at this.  
  
“Oh, no, it is fine mamaí; it is just about the base there.” She sighed, but didn’t push the issue.  
  
Luckily for everyone involved, they got to the rehab hospital shortly thereafter.   
  
“Get better soon, mamaí!”  
  
“Be good, Pádraig!”  
  
\-----  
  
Baj yawned. Tom had just called him to let him know that Paul had agreed to the plan of coming back out for the summer, and the boys were very excited to meet their uncle and aunt.  
  
All in all, while it certainly could have gone better, this…interlude, so to speak, had gone pretty damn well.   
  
He was mostly just happy to finally be able to conclude this chapter in his life, even if it _did_ seem to be opening another one at the same time. At least that meant he’d get to see his brother again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes, etc
> 
> 1 Breakfast
> 
> 2 The trunk of the car


End file.
